


Darling, You Look So Afraid

by Marshmellow (orphan_account), sirrylot



Series: Burnt Beneath the Rising Sun [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen, M/M, affectionately called, canonical character deaths, soulmates!verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Marshmellow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirrylot/pseuds/sirrylot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t worry about it, Carwood. True love always wins, right?”</p><p>(Drama in the midst of war and grown men.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is part 1 of a several part soulmates!verse thing, written by sirrylot and collaborated on between by sirrylot and Marshmellow. if anyone has any questions ask me @ zitkaa on tumblr.

Nix has been sober for two days and a captain for five when he meets Dick Winters. He’s had the words _Richard D. W._ inscribed on the inside of his wrist for months—woke up one day to find it burning, his heart thumping a bit louder—but he knows he and his “soulmate” (whatever the fuck that is, he doesn’t like the sappy names everyone insists on slapping onto this biological norm) haven’t been within miles of each other just yet.

Not until he’s introduced to Richard Winters while in Fort Benning, that is.

And if the sudden roll in his stomach and the boy’s name and the brand on his skin weren’t enough, he knows he could have fallen in love with those eyes and that smile alone.

\---

Dick is honest and respectable and everything that Lewis Nixon is _not_. How or why he becomes friends with Nix is still a mystery, but he’s not going to question this One Good Thing anytime soon.

So they meet and shake hands and Dick says he’s heard a lot about Nix and Nix says he can’t exactly return the sentiment, which makes Dick laugh, which in turn makes his entire face light up, and it’s beautiful. Nix wants to slap himself for being so sappy but then he and Dick finally part ways and his mind is clear again and then—then he remembers. He stops, lifts his wrist, stares at the familiar swirling letters. Letters that have been a part of him for so long now, and letters that make up the name of the boy he just met.

Well, assuming.

There were a lot of people named _Richard D. W.,_ he’s sure, but there’s a feeling in his gut (soul, more like, but he’s not admitting that anytime soon) that screams to live out the rest of eternity with Dick Winters.

And, well, if that isn’t an indicator, then he’s probably drunk again.

\---

They’ve gone to Toccoa, trained with Sobel and the tough men of Easy, and run up Currahee more times than he’d care to count. They’ve made it to Aldbourne, gotten _rid_ of Sobel, and now gained Meehan.  Easy has been through a lot in the years building up to their part in the war, and all it serves to do is make Nix feel tired beyond his years.

He and Dick have stayed friends and maybe—just _maybe_ —there’s something unspoken beneath the surface. He almost brings it up a few times, but then he sees the genuine respect from the boys, hears Sink waxing poetic about Dick’s leading abilities, notices him helping out people he doesn’t have to help out, and then Nix remembers how Dick will always be too good for him.

So he moves and keeps hiding his Vat-69 in Dick’s footlocker and acts like friendship will always be enough for him.

Which, okay.

It actually would be enough, because just having someone like Dick Winters in your life should be enough for God himself.

But.

But the name on his wrist and the stupid _fluttery_ feeling he gets every time they’re near each other begs to differ. And isn’t life just fucking dandy—giving him a perfect soulmate, and making him a dumb, drunk captain. Lucky as all hell, isn’t he?

Dick, of course, doesn’t seem to hold the alcohol or the irresponsibility or the unwillingness to move before 10AM (among dozens of other things) against him. At all. Which is also a little bit unfair because Nix knows anyone else would have given up on him by this point; but, well, Dick _doesn’t._

Actually, it’s more than a “little”unfair because that means Dick taking care of him when he has a hangover, and Dick letting Nix hide his pilfered alcohol in his footlocker, and Dick getting him out of trouble, and Dick standing by him when he’s done something bad or unseemly. Most of all, it means Dick still smiles at him when the entire Company is jogging in the early morning and while they’re eating a shitty dinner of who-knows-what and when Nix drinks a little too much and stumbles (on purpose) into him.

His _luck_.

\---

Nix got the news about the jump just hours ago. Jumping into Normandy, they say, the _Invasion_.

The words on the paper and from Sink’s mouth suddenly makes it all wildly and completely _real_. Before, he hadn’t let his mind wander too far in the future—kept it firmly in Toccoa with mountains and poker games or in dreary Aldbourne with failed exercises and quiet days—but now he’s stuck firmly on what’s about to happen.

Easy is going to jump, along with several other airborne units. They’re going to _jump_ and most of them won’t come home.

He drinks.

Dick, predictably, is the one to seek him out. He’s gone through a bottle and a half by now and is only a little bit drunk. Maybe more than that.

Maybe it was two bottles and a half.

 Point is, Dick walks in and Nix is laying on his back, empty bottle number something dangling between his fingers. When Dick stands over him, Nix can’t tell if the look on his face is disappointment or exasperated fondness.

“Lew.” Dick says, all quiet-like and gentle. Fucking typical, of course, because when is Dick every anything but understanding and _good_?

Nixon grins a little unsteadily at him, but doesn’t say anything.

“Lew.” Dick says again. He shakes his head a little, then crouches down. “Let’s get you to bed, alright?”

Nix raises his bottle-gripping hand and waves it around precariously, narrowly hitting Dick in the face, then slurs, “I’m—I’m not ready.”

They both know what he’s talking about, and something in Dick’s eyes shift. Nix thinks he looks a little sad. “I know,” He says, voice somewhere between amused and soulful, “no one is. But Vat-69 isn’t going to stop Hitler, and it sure isn’t going to stop Taylor or Sink or any of our higher-ups.”

“ _Fuck_ them.” Nix says vehemently.

Dick laughs a little at that, and then carefully pulls the bottle from Nix’s loose fingers. He sets it on the table with his growing collection of empty bottles, pausing a little, staring (counting), then turns back to Nix. His smile is a little tight this time.

But then he freezes and Nix knows automatically why.

He rolls over quickly (as quick as a drunk man can), pulls his arms close to himself, and tries to regulate his breathing, tries to make his heart stop _jumping._ And, God, this would be so much easier if he was sober and if he didn’t get that stupid fluttery feeling every time Dick was simply in the same room.  Of course, the fluttery thing is increased tenfold because he can feel the heat radiating off Dick’s body, washing across his back, can hear his _breathing_.

The sound of Dick inhaling deeply is what he first registers, followed the sudden presence of his warm hand on Nix’s wrist, and—

“Please don’t.”

Dick doesn’t move his hand.

“Dick,” he says, voice clearer than he ever remembers it being. “Please, just—”

“If my name is there, Lew…” His voice trails, and Nix can feel his eyes on the back of his wrist, can practically hear Dick’s frown.

“And what if it’s not?” Maybe if he smothers himself, Dick will leave.

There’s a long moment of silence, then suddenly Dick isn’t there anymore. When Nix turns over it’s to see his best friend hovering near the door. He doesn’t look at Nix, but his lips quirk a little, and there’s something changed in the air. “If it is.” He pauses, eyes focusing somewhere in Georgia, “If it is, I don’t think I’d really mind.”

And then he’s gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s when David Webster is 18 and ready to leave for college that his mother sits him down and tells him about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since I forgot a disclaimer last time: this is solely based off the HBO show Band of Brothers. No relation to the real men, and no disrespect meant. Along with that, nothing belongs to me.
> 
> also, if anyone was interested, the fic title comes from Dogs by Page France.

It’s when David Webster is 18 and ready to leave for college that his mother sits him down and tells him about it.  
  
“You know how some people are always wearing wristbands? Those unhappy people?” She asks him. He doesn’t miss how she’s one of them, and she doesn’t miss that he doesn’t miss it, and her smile is a little more mournful for it. “Well, Davey.” She continues steadily. “‘Soulmates’ is a flowery term and most people don’t like to use it. But, well, the fact of the matter is: soulmates exist and sometimes the universe likes to mess with you.”  
  
He remembers staring incredulously at her for a solid minute. _That can’t be true,_ he knows he thought, _because if it is—where is mine?_  
  
“Sometimes you never meet them.” She continues, doing her Mother Thing and naturally reading his mind. But now her voice is slow, and her mind is in the past. “Sometimes you have to settle for less. That doesn’t mean you don’t love each other—it just means you could love someone else more. And, to be honest with you, it also means you live your life as just a half and an empty heart.”  
  
He remembers demanding why she’d tell him such a thing, and all she’d done was laugh and pat his hand. He remembers being angry at her for leaving him nervous and confused, worried that he’d live out his life as nothing but a just-beating heart and half a being’s soul, unhappy and in a meaningless relationship.  
  
But then he’d left home, left his parents’ support, then—and even now it feels like the apex to his life—he’d joined the paratroopers.  
  
\---  
  
Normandy and D-Day have already happened. Easy has trained together for years besides that, and so Webster is treated like a replacement. He was at Toccoa, they all know, but he trained with Fox and he jumped with Headquarters; and the combination of those two immediately alienates him until he manages to prove himself.  
  
He makes friends, yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s included within the exclusive folds of _Currahee!_ and “Damn, I think I kind of want to thank Sobel, son of a bitch that he was.”  
  
So he makes friends, but is still shunned. He fights beside the men, but hasn’t done anything particularly exceptional. Through it all, Webster is almost positive he’s going to come out of the war positively alone, and he’s going to go home to disappointed parents and some marriage he’s going to have to _settle for_.  
  
In other words, exactly the opposite of what he wants.  
  
It is naïve of him to think that he might _meet someone,_ but being naïve was kind of what he was known for. And being dramatic. Everyone was always telling him he’s too dramatic.  
  
Point is, the middle of a war is a fucking wonderful place to meet your soulmate, and his mother’s words will always be at the back of his mind. Even sitting in a shallow foxholes and eating a ration of a K-Ration, there’s still a stupid, lingering hope.  
  
He wishes he could turn it off.  
  
(Partly to save himself from being disappointed, but mostly so he doesn’t get himself killed wondering if his soulmate is behind enemy lines or—even worse— _is_ the enemy.)  
  
Joseph Liebgott crashes into his life during one of these musings.  
  
Well, it’s less “crashes” and more “worms his way into.”  
  
It goes like this: Web is friends with replacements and Buck Compton and Bill Guarnere, because who isn’t friends with Compton and Guarnere? So he sits around and drinks and laughs with these men and things are going okay, if he does say so himself, and they’re all waiting for what he hears is going to be Holland. Eindhoven, someone tells him.  
  
Then, for reasons that he’s not sure he’ll ever know, the local barber and backtalk guy starts sitting next to him at mealtimes—Joseph Liebgott, he knows is the guy’s name. Then it extends from mealtime to briefings to on trucks and tanks when they move out.  
  
They start talking.  
  
Somewhere between “so, College Boy, war treating you well?” and “don’t get your pretty ass fucking killed” they become friends. They don’t talk about the people they left at home or the meals they’ll have when everything is over, not like almost everyone else. They talk about why they joined and how they heard about it, what they were doing when that Pearl Harbor shitstorm happened, and what they wish they could have right at that moment. Liebgott doesn’t pry into things he doesn’t want to talk about, and Webster returns the favor. It’s a casual and easy friendship that leaves Web feeling happier and thinking that maybe he can go home a little less empty.  
  
At some, unannounced point in time, they start arguing.  
  
It’s not the vicious words he’s heard girls exchange, and it’s not genuine division over opinions, it’s just—arguing.  
  
There are angry tones and waving hands and Webster’s pretty sure there’s a reason for it, but by the time they stomp off in different directions or (less frequently) come to an agreement, he’s even surer that they’re arguing just for the sake of arguing.  
  
It’s a frequent source of entertainment for everyone else, he finds out later.  
  
“What the fuck are we doing?” He asked Liebgott one time. They’re past holding a half blinded brother in the bombed out shell of building a million miles away from home and closer to Lieb and a neck wound that will have Webster fussing and angrier than he will ever remember being. “ _Why_ are we doing this?”  
  
Lieb snorted. “It’s just how we work, Web, not much else to it.”  
  
“You make it sound like we’re a _couple_.” He returned, making a vaguely annoyed face.  
For that, he got a flat look and something on the border of a sneer. “We? Us? All this fresh air—it gets to you. Especially after being holed up in libraries with your fuckin’ Faulkner and shit.”  
  
“I’ve been outside before, Joe.”  
  
“Really?” He got a raised eyebrow that time, and Liebgott leaned a little closer, pretending to study his face carefully. “Huh.”  
  
Web rolled his eyes and smacked the hand Liebgott was using to poke at his cheek.  
  
They move on.  
  
***  
  
Nix wakes up alone and badly hungover.  
  
He thinks to himself: _Dick hates me_. Even after lying painfully still for ten minutes, shuffling aimlessly through his memories of the night before, he can’t come up with a reason for thinking that.  
  
Even when he greets Dick during the morning briefing, he can’t think of anything, and Dick gives no indication to what transpired. Of course, this only serves to make Nix nervous.  
  
More nervous. The impending Invasion was doing fine on its own, but the bags beneath Dick’s eyes and the slight distance between them are somehow worse. _Priorities_ , Nix thinks.

He gets the feeling he’ll never know what happened.

That is, until the day is over and he’s tired and just wants to _sleep,_ but his wrist has been bothering him all day and then—  
  
He sees it.                                                                                                                            
 _  
Richard D. Winters_.

He’s completely positive that the name hadn’t been filled out before and now can’t help but be overwhelmed with—what is he overwhelmed with? He wants to puke, is all he can say. He wants to puke and run away.

 _I’ve lost him_ , he thinks, _he doesn’t care about me anymore_.

And, if not that, then what is the universe telling him now?  
  
\---  
  
They jump and lose Meehan. They lose men he’s seen every day for the past two years, gain a few skittish kids that don’t want to be there, and Dick becomes the acting company commander.

Nix stops drinking because Dick won’t stop giving him these looks and walking stiffly around him and he thinks it might be the alcoholism. Even when that turns out to not be it (after days of observation), he still tries to stay away from the bottle. He figures he won’t survive the war if he fights it drunk.

But then they're told to "wait for more orders" and he’s left to wallow without anything to numb the butterflies in this stomach and the raging headache that’s threatening to render him (more) useless.

A part of him wants to run to Dick and demand what he knows about the extra “ _inters”_ on the inside of Nix’s wrist, but another part of him points out that having Dick know about it in the first place will just make the rejection more painful.

(Because that’s what it’s going to be: Nix will say “you’re my soulmate” and Dick will say “no thank you” and that will be the end of any possible happiness Nix might have or could have possessed.)

He keeps wallowing.

\---

It’s sometime past Too Late to Be Awake and breaching on Too Early to Be Awake when Dick finds him again. This time, with two bottle of Vat-69.

“Is there a reason my footlocker has been suspiciously full lately?” He asks, and he sounds amused and it’s like whatever-happened never happened. He hopes it didn’t.

Nix raises a lazy eyebrow. “You didn’t notice that two years ago?”

“Considering how fast you go through bottles,” Dick says, “you probably could have hidden these in Sobel’s footlocker and gotten away with it.” He laughs a little at his own joke, then sets them down near Nix.

“Thanks.” He finds himself saying. “I was going to try the whole sober thing, but, well. Doesn’t really fit my worldview.” And joking about it probably isn’t the healthiest thing, but Dick is indulging him and who is Lewis Nixon to deny Dick Winters anything at all? Who is anyone to--

Too late, Nix abruptly realizes that Dick has stepped closer and now their knees are nearly touching. He freezes and stares resolutely at Dick’s stomach, at eye level. Or close to eye level. Damn.

“Do you remember what happened a few nights ago?” Dick presses, voice the one of a commanding officer.

“No.” Nix answers truthfully, without really meaning to. “Curiosity killed the drunk” and all that noise.

A beat. Then, quietly: “Lew, look at me.”

After a moment of hesitation, he stands and finds himself nearly eye-to-eye with Dick. Dick, whose gaze has never been so intent, whose eyes are these perfect color that Nix wants to study until the years have passed and wrinkles form around them, and whose mouth is saying words that are probably important.

His voice cracks when he says, “Sorry?”

“I thought I saw my name.” Dick’s voice is low and gentle and everything Nix wishes it wouldn’t be at this exact moment, because he has a sick feeling about what’s about to happen, but some higher power won’t let him move to stop it.

Then Dick’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist, and all the hard training he suffered couldn’t have prepared him for the moment that Dick’s eyes alight on how own name. His own fucking _name_ inscribed on his stupid best friend’s wrist, where it shouldn’t be, because Nix doesn’t deserve someone like Dick and he really hadn’t planned on losing everything so soon.

Nix gets a sudden picture of the entire world stopping—every living being pausing in their tracks, holding their breaths, all waiting just as anxiously as Nix for Dick to say _something_. The thought of Hitler doing so is all it takes to make Nix laugh.

The laugh comes out sharp and a little crazy sounding and all he wants to do now is yank his wrist back and jump out the window, but he knows he couldn’t do that to Dick. He knows without having to think too hard that he could never do anything against Dick’s best interests.

After too long, Dick says, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nix doesn’t answer.

Dick drops his wrist, steps back, and now he won’t even look at Nix. Dick, the man who takes life head on while remaining _logical,_ who managed to shoulder the responsibility of commanding his friends while in the middle of battle, who knows Nix better than anyone else ever will, can’t even stand to look at him.

Christ.

They hover there in silent odds for what could be a week, until Nix finally feels a little too broken and picks up one of the bottles of VAT Dick had brought over.

It’s only after Nix has popped it open, taken a long, long pull, and gripped it a little too tight, that he realizes he’s alone again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not until later, when Babe encounters Roe for the second time, that he sees an almost shy smile and takes in the shock of black hair and how easy he talks and saves, that an odd thumping feeling manifests in his heart and he remembers how the words _Eugene G. R._ burn on his wrist.

“You are the _biggest_  fucking _moron_ this side of the war.” Harry Welsh says to him the next morning.

Nix blearily squints at him, frown tugging on his lips. “You speak to all you commanding officers like that, Harry?”

Harry sighs heavily and sounds like he’s rolling his eyes, but Nix is trying to hide from the sun now.  “If they’re stumbling in a drunken and needlessly-heartbroken haze like you with Dick, then yeah, I do, Nix.”

“Don’t talk to me about heartbroken.” Nix mutters. “You’ve got Kitty.”

And now he can almost hear the insanely large grin on Harry’s face and great, just wonderful. Exactly what he needs: Harry and his disgustingly adorable love for Kitty Grogan. Along with their stupid luck at finding each other months before Harry shipped out for war.

“Yeah,” Harry finally says after a long pause, during which Nix has no doubt he was busy remembering Kitty’s smile and laugh and oh God, her hair is just so soft and she’s so soft. I miss her so much, guys. “I do have Kitty, don’t I?”

Nix groans.

“Anyway,” Harry says quickly, voice dropping to something unnecessarily gruff. “You love him, he loves you, I really don’t get why you have to mope and drink so much.”

“He doesn’t love me.”

“Jesus Christ—are you being serious? Oh no, Nix, you are. Do I need to get Buck to help me lock you two in a closet somewhere?”

Nix’s head snaps up and he ignores the pain in favor of glaring at Harry. “Will you just leave me alone? We can work this out without little elves intervening.”

Harry only rolls his eyes in response. “Fine, dance all you want. The rest of Easy will have to suffer from your sexual tension, just remember. Hell, Hitler will probably personally tell you two to kiss and make up already.”

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

For whatever weird, tiny-man reasons Harry has, Nix’s death glare and half-heartedly thrown bottle gets a laugh.

***

The moment Babe Heffron meets Eugene Roe isn't eventful.

Gene is patching up guys and Babe is looking for Bill and it's a little bit of war chaos and a little bit of the relief after battle.

There's an in between and a moment where he finds himself saying, "Hey, Doc, you seen Bill Guarnere?" and Roe only glances up for a moment, frowns, squints, and replies, "Edward Heffron, isn't it?"

 "Babe." He corrects immediately.

 But Roe had turned his attention back to someone's bleeding leg and said, "Think he was around Captain Winters."

 So Babe left without giving it much more thought, except in finding his best friend.

It's not until later, when he encounters Roe for the second time, that he sees an almost shy smile and takes in the shock of black hair and how easy he talks and saves, that an odd thumping feeling manifests in his heart and he remembers how the words _Eugene G. R._ burn on his wrist.

\---

There’s something about Eugene Roe, is the thing. (Besides being Babe’s soulmate which, holy shit, he struck gold here, didn’t he? Unless the _R_ stands for Roger or something, but Babe doesn’t like to think about that.)

Gene doesn’t say much. He gives quick orders in the middle of a firefight, talks in his low Cajun lilt with a smoke between his lips and a tired look in his eyes, and isn’t afraid to tell even the officers if they’ve done something wrong.

His hair is nearly blue with how dark it is, and his nose always gets really red when he’s cold.  His hands are nimble and quick, he doesn’t hesitate to plunge them within someone’s chest cavity. They almost constantly have blood under the nails, and they’re warm, and whenever Gene even brushes Babe the slightest bit—on accident or on purpose—it makes him feel _fuzzy_ inside.

Bill laughs at him. “You’re so fucking screwed, Heffron.” He says, slapping his knee and giving Babe his most shit-eating grin.

Babe narrows his eyes. “Yeah, well, fuck you, Bill.”

“Wouldn’t you rather fuck—”

“Shut up!”

Bill laughs more.

So it continues like that all through the Netherlands and after.

They fight and fight and fight and then Winters gets promoted and then the Company is screwed over because, eventually, they end up with Dike.

Babe is more worried about Bill and Spina and Roe than himself, but they’re all going to be out in the field being commanded by that idiot, and there’s a sick feeling in his stomach that won’t stop plaguing him with thoughts of _what if Gene gets hit?_

He’s watched him work out there—with bullets flying overhead and Germans pouring in from every which way. Gene, with his nearly complete disregard for personal safety, always worrying about whoever is calling “Medic!” nearest to him, along with his lucky quirk of being able to leave a spot right before it’s occupied by something that would have killed him. Besides keeping his brothers and friends alive, all it serves to do is give Babe heart palpitations and a sickening anxiety that makes him want to wrap up Gene and hide him from the war.

And then Babe’s feet do some independent thinking and bring him to Gene once again. It takes Babe all of ten seconds to realize that Gene had paused in what seemed like cataloguing the medical supplies, and was now patiently waiting for him to say something.

“Uh, he-ey, Doc.” He says, offering a nervous smile (and he is _not_ _blushing_ ).

Gene’s smile is amused. “Heffron.” He says, nodding, before turning back to this clipboard and rolls of bandages.

“Actually, most people call me Babe.”

After too long without an answer, he realizes Gene probably hadn’t heard him and instead clears his throat. Gene looks back up.

“You hurt or somethin’, Heffron?”

Babe shifts on his feet and runs his fingers through his hair. “No, I just, uh. Wanted to say hello. And I needed to ask you a favor.”

Gene tilts his head just the slightest bit— _puppies are overrated_ , Babe thinks—and says, “Depends on the legality.”

His laugh is mostly out of surprise, but the new confidence is probably spurred on more from Gene’s own relaxed body and now welcoming smile. “Nah, nah, nothing like that.” He says, waving his hands. “I just—uh. Just wanted to check up on you, make sure you take care of yourself, you know? While we’re fighting and in times like now.” And—Bill would literally fall over laughing—his confidence evaporates at the sudden looming threat of what he’d really meant to say to Gene. “Wouldn’t really enjoy seeing you hurt and all that noise.”

(And okay, he’d more meant to say something along the lines of: “we’re soulmates and I’m in love with you and seeing you hurt would destroy me and render me useless for this entire goddamn war and I don’t think I could ever stand to see you even with more than the usual bruises.” But he figures Gene doesn’t need to hear that just yet.)

Some of the tiredness seems to seep out of Gene’s eyes then, and the sharp lines of his face soften just the slightest bit. “I’m taking care of myself, yeah. Spina can’t take care of you boys by himself.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Ralph struggles enough, you know, but you—you have that natural gentleness about you. And, uh.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. That’s all I need to say.”

“Thanks for the concern, Heffron.”

“It’s—uh. Yeah, never mind.” He quickly turns and strides out of the aid tent, dodging other medics and limping men. Just before ducking out of the flap, he throws a hurried, “You’re welcome.” over his shoulder for good measure.

And, well.

Babe is pretty fucked.

\---

Actually, he’s less fucked, and more _completely and utterly head over ass over heart with the best guy in the entire military_ which he guesses could equate to “fucked” but Gene deserves something a little more eloquent than that.

What happens next is this:

Babe gets hurt.

It’s nothing bad—he can stay on the line, won’t have to hang around with Captain Nixon and Colonel Sink while they watch Easy fight or anything—but it hurts like hell.

The thing about getting hit, though, is that you don’t know what’s going on until you’re bleeding all over yourself and lying on the ground and the world hasn’t stopped spinning.

Someone beside him (Perconte? Liebgott? He can’t tell.) is screaming for a medic and he feels like he’s going to puke. There’s blood coming from somewhere and he thinks he’s never been in that much pain before, that maybe this is it. He may never see Bill again, or his Ma or brothers or sisters, and he definitely won’t get to see Gene again. The worst part, though, is that he can’t figure out which is worse.

Later, he’ll blame it on the haze caused by blood loss.

What comes next is blurry and confusing and pain, but there’s some bizarre comfort and warmth that fills him and absolutely assures Babe that he’s going to live to see Hitler shot. It takes him one cot and creaky bones to realize that it’d been Gene there.

Gene, who had heard the shouts for a medic, had sewn and fixed him up and gotten him out and was right at that very moment standing beside Babe’s bed and changing his bandages.

He blinks.

“Well, look who’s finally awake.” Gene says, and this time his smile is tight. (Babe can’t help but start categorizing Gene’s smiles—numbering and naming them, linking them with emotions and words-to-say.)

He accepts the offered water and sits up unsteadily, head not cooperating, feeling sore and a little like he’d been run over by a tank. The first question that, predictably, leaves his mouth (and for that he gets Gene Smile #3—confused and concerned) is, “I’m not gettin’ sent back to a hospital, right?”

Smile #3 is accompanied with a headshake now. “You can fight again—after you get your strength back. We ain’t movin’ out for a while, go back to sleep.”

“’M not tired.” Babe dismisses with a weak wave of his hand.

Gene raises an eyebrow.

Babe lies back down.

As it turns out, he got hit in the thigh, and the bullet had barely missed a major artery. Gene, moving quickly and not looking Babe in the eye, keeps telling him how lucky he is that it wasn’t just half an inch this way or that—how, if it had, he’d be dead and Captain Winters would be writing a condolence letter to his Ma. And that Gene would have personally brought Babe back to life just to slap him for dying where Gene couldn’t see him.

“Didn’t know you cared, Doc.” Babe says, voice thick and vision growing a bit blurry again. He yawns.

“’Course I care.” Gene says. He’d stopped working on Babe’s bandages a while ago, and was mostly just pretending to check the various shallow cuts Babe had collected. “We’re all Easy men, here, and no Easy man is about to die on my watch.”

“That’s putting a helluva lot of pressure on yourself, isn’t it?”

Gene pauses. Finally, his eyes meet Babe’s (slightly unfocused) eyes, and he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

Something happens, then. Babe has no idea what it is, or even if he’ll remember its existence when he wakes up again, but it’s something crucial and beautiful and makes him feel safer than he has since he entered the war.

“I’ll see you on the field, Heffron.” Gene says after the moment fades into something pleasant and lingering. “Don’t break anything without me around.”

Babe sleeps.

***

Web is almost positive that Joseph Liebgott hates him.

At first, they were pretty good friends. Not in the conventional, share-your-secrets, steal-your-food type way, more like a talk-comfortably and fight-beside-and-sometimes-against-each-other way. He didn’t feel pressured to put in more effort than he was willing to give in a time of war, and Lieb had his moments of kindness and exhaustion—just like the rest of him. There was something about the distinctly _human_ moments of Liebgott that really got to him, but he mostly blamed that on the writer inside him: constantly looking for characters and plots and tragedies to take advantage of and real stories to tell.

“War,” Lieb says to him one day, “is the best fuckin’ place for that fancy shit, Web. Trust me.” And he says it like he’s a seasoned veteran, like they haven’t been fighting for the same amount of time with the same people in the same places.

Web’s response is just a dry, “Thank you for those enlightening words, Joe, really.”

And if Joe’s smile is a little too genuine for Web to be comfortable, and if the hand slapping his back lingers a bit longer than needed, and this blooming terror in his soul isn’t telling him _something—_ then fucked if he knows how he’ll come out of it all.

\---

Web gets hit.

It’s quick and mostly clean. He doesn’t bleed all over the place and Johnny Martin is already calling for a medic. He says, “Jesus Christ, they got me!” and then suddenly it _doesn’t_ hurt.

He thinks it might be because he’s dead, just for a moment, then he realizes that the shadow that had fallen over him wasn’t a dark angel, but instead it’s just Joe.

 Joe looks angrier than Web ever remembers, and he’s yelling something at Web. Insults, probably.

The fight winds down and Doc Roe patches him up, Skinny hovers by and gives him an encouraging smile, then says, “Can you make it back to CP?” when Web’s done lamenting his overdramatic exclamations.

He says thanks and limps his way to the jeep, and it’s then that Joe stomps past with a trail of POWs.

“Hey, Joe!” Web calls while the driver is conversing with one of the medics. “Joe!”

“Have fun in the hospital, Web.” Joe yells without looking back.

Something that isn’t his leg twinges with hurt. He thinks: _Joe hates me_ , and the next three months are spent feeling sad and alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops, sorry for taking so long.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitty Grogan stumbles her way into Harry’s life two months before he signs up for the paratroops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY

Kitty Grogan stumbles her way into Harry’s life two months before he signs up for the paratroops.

The day is miserable and wet and his mother had forced him to run down the street for some bread and milk. He almost gives up half way through—his socks are wet and his shoes are making squishing sounds and he was in the middle of one of his many “why am I 24 and living with my parents” crises. Part of him is tempted to turn around and tell his mother the store had been robbed of all its bread and milk, but the other part knows how the guilt of lying to his mother would weigh heavier on his shoulder than any ruined coat.

But then he gets to the store and gets what he needs and is about to brave running all the way home with his bag of groceries when the door tinkles open and a girl walks in.

Harry’s first thought it something along the lines of “ _Jesus Christ._ ”

Harry’s second thought is, more articulately, “ _Holy shit.”_

And, at that point, she’s shaking out her umbrella and running her fingers through her damp hair, making a face at the ground and looking generally displeased.

On a good day, Harry would have given her a smile and said “are you alright, miss?” followed by her “oh no, I’m alright, thank you,” then another smile and a polite bow and quickly ducking out of the door.

Today was, obviously, not that great of a day for him.

He nearly drops his bags in his haste to get to the door, where he’s at a loss for words before unceremoniously blurting out a, “You alright?”

Then she looks up at him, and Harry Welsh’s entire world view is skewered violently.

Her tired, red-lipstick-ed smile is probably the most beautiful he’s seen, and he gets lost somewhere in her youthful eyes. There’s a moment where it feels like time has frozen around him and all he knows is her.

The moment breaks when someone else enters the shop and angrily jostles them aside.

“Sorry,” she apologizes to the disgruntled old man with a smile. She doesn’t wait for his glare before turning back to Harry, now peering up at him with curious eyes and a confused look. “I’m, ah, I’m alright. Thank you.”

“Oh.” He answers. “That’s good. I just, uh.”

“I’m Kitty.” She says quickly, holding out the hand that isn’t clutching an umbrella. He shakes her hand and feels something new flare inside him.

He smiles. “I’m Harry.”

\---

Two days later, she shows him his name, written in full on the inside of her wrist, and he picks her up and twirls her around until they’re both breathless with laughter.

\---

A week later, she kisses him and it feels like his world has exploded in a brilliant burst of color and happiness.

\---

Bastogne is blinding light on pure snow and bursts of death in an all-consuming black. Bastogne chills him to the bone and wounds him and tramples over his friends. Bastogne murders in ways a serial killer never could, and Bastogne cracks open his soul and makes the hope leak out.

He keeps a picture of Kitty in his helmet and holds it at night to keep warm.

***

Babe takes Bastogne and makes it his own.

He stamps his feet with Ralph and makes bad jokes with Bill and tells Julian stories of Holland. He drops by Gene’s hole at least once a day and asks him how he’s doing—sometimes he stays and chats, sometimes he falls asleep there, but most times it’s just a few words and an increasingly tired smile from Gene (#6: the _I could sleep for a decade but I have to go be a good person first_ smile), then he’s back to his own foxhole.

No one misses how beautiful Bastogne is, how the snow glistens on still tree branches, how the smoothness of the No Man’s Land between them and the Krauts is almost like ice. It’s all a perfectly preserved sculpture.

Of course, then the artillery comes raining down like it _belongs_ there, and the illusion is shattered. Bastogne becomes ugliness and cold and the farthest thing from peace he’s ever been near.

He just wants to go home.

But he doesn’t let himself think about that and, instead, focuses on the people around him, and blocks out Bastogne. Granted, the latter is difficult because of the fact that it overshadows everything else, but he tries and it helps and he wishes he could share that sort of acceptance with Gene.

By the time they’ve been in Bastogne for a week, he forgets what warmth feels like and dreams of sleeping in soft, sunny meadows. It’s awful, but he doesn’t let himself complain too much.

Two weeks in, Julian is killed.

Afterwards, he goes to find Gene, but finds Ralph instead and settles himself in dejectedly, entertaining the vague thought of taking anyone’s comfort at that point.

But then there’s a flutter of tarp, a cold blast of air, and an almost familiar warmth blooming inside him. He lifts his head and watches with a mixture of numb pain and confusion as Gene slides into the foxhole. He pauses, eyes lighting on the way Babe is curled under Ralph’s arm, and gives him Gene Smile #2 (relief and muted happiness). His voice is smooth when he murmurs, “Gotcha.”

There are some words and he knows he snaps at Gene but suddenly Ralph is gone and he’s engulfed in the smell of Eugene Roe—frosted skin and blood soaked hands, long-past Cajun cooking, and something else that makes him melt into Gene’s arms.

“You’re gonna be fine, Heffron.” He says, tone set to comfort a dying man.

Babe turns his head and presses his face into Gene’s chest. He wants to cry and shoot some Germans, he wants to scream, he wants Julian to be alive, he wants to get Julian’s _things_ , write a letter to his Ma, tell her about how great her baby boy was. He wants Bastogne to melt around them.

For a moment, he distances himself from that and almost tells Gene to stop calling him Heffron, to stop acting like they aren’t friends in some capacity, and to stop leaving his life in the hands of Fate and the Germans. A moment after that, he snaps back to Julian and curls further within himself.

He falls asleep in Gene’s arms.

***

The hospital is nice.

It’s warm and comfortable and the middle-aged nurse that takes care of him is nice enough to lend him some books. It’s quiet most of the time, and the atmosphere makes him feel more at home than being with Easy ever really did.

(And he feels guilty for thinking that because they were supposed to be his best friends, brothers, a bond forged in war, but he was an outsider there, just like he has been his entire life.)

Sometimes Webster writes.

The vast majority of his writing is really just scribbles on scraps of paper the nurses managed to find for him, written in stubs of pencil, tucked into his already full journal. He writes about training and D-Day, about the people he was with and the things he thought, and gathers it all in one place for later publishing. He daydreams of people asking him to sign their books, about the titles that will be screamed from headlines, and the mountains of praise from even the harshest of critics for his transformative view on war.

He daydreams of Joe Liebgott.

Webster is stuck on those last words Joe said to him, on his posture and tone and stride. It all told him anger but there was something else that told him of—well, he didn’t know what it was telling him. Something deeper than anger. Something that wasn’t _anger_ , necessarily.

He itches to write Joe a letter. He composes it a few times, when he’s drifting off to sleep and the pain in his leg is a distant memory. At one point, he actually writes it on the first full and unmarred paper he’s come across for weeks.

He writes: _I’m sorry._

He rips it up.

\---

David Webster is a coward.

He knows full well that he’s healthy enough to rejoin Easy, to help them hold the line at the now infamous Bastogne. He _knows_ that going AWOL won’t have any consequences besides possibly getting him killed but (that’s war) that doesn’t seem to register with his mind.

So he stays in rehabilitation while his friends die in the snow.

( _I’m not a soldier, I don’t want to be in this war, I want to go home and curl up with my words and my authors. I want to be away from Joe Liebgott and the way he makes me feel different, I want to stay away from him, I want to go to the sea and write sonnets about its waves and publish books that people read by the fire, I don’t want to go back to fighting I don’t I don’t I don’t._ )

***

“Hiding from your problems isn’t going to do anything, Nix.”

“I’m hiding from Dick.”

“Exactly.”

“Fuck you.”

***

“Question.” Skip Muck says immediately after rolling into Malarkey’s foxhole during a shelling.

Malark raises an eyebrow, the picture made more amusing by the fact that all Muck can see is the top half of his face because of the way he’s huddled next to Luz.

Shouting, now, “I HAVE A QUESTION.”

Luz rolls his eyes and Malark makes a face that’s somewhere between _ask the goddamn question_ and _is this really the time._

He snaps his mouth closed, slides in on Luz’s other side, and waits patiently for the shelling to stop.

Once his ears have stopped ringing, he turns on his two friends and says, “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“Well, Muck, when a man and woman love each other very much—”

“We’re fighting a goddamn war.” Penkala says, joining them in the foxhole and cutting off Malarkey, who gives him a half-hearted glare. “What do you think we’re doing, Muck?”

“ _Well_.” He answers, winding himself up. “I’m just saying—doesn’t the army have more unfortunate souls to inflict the Belgian winter on? We could have been in Berlin for God’s sake. You know, where there are beds.”

“What the hell is a bed?” Luz asks, frowning at Muck. “You lost me at the illusion of ‘comfort.’”

“You guys are no good for philosophical conversation.” Muck complains.

“We’re paratroopers, buddy,” Penk says, grinning cheekily at him. “We jump out of planes, thought process is beyond us.”

And he laughs and resolutely doesn’t stare at Malarkey and how the laughter and the warmth makes him look more like himself than he has in weeks.

***

Dick Winters isn’t one for whining, but Bastogne is definitely trying its hardest to pull some complaints out of him.

One of his main complaints, though, would relate to one Lewis Nixon and his inherent need to avoid Dick and hide in foxholes and pretend like they’ve just met. It’s infuriating and saddening and Dick isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do about it, but he desperately wants to fix it.

He ends up consulting Lipton, one of the three men in the company with their heads screwed on straight.

“Is there any possibility of you talking to Captain Nixon and asking him why he’s avoiding me?”

Lip raises an eyebrow at him but graciously goes to do so with nothing but a, “Sure, sir.”

Ten minutes later, Lip returns looking solemn. “Sir, Nixon tells me that he’s not actually avoiding you, he’s ‘just really cold.’”

Dick frowns. “Is he drunk?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Huh.” Dick scratches the back of his neck. “Tell him we’ll talk about it when he’s sober.”

“Yes, sir.”

While Lip is gone, Buck blunders his way into the tent he’d been forced to set up, rubbing his arms and shaking snow out of his hair. “Please tell me you’re not using my officers to move along your high school drama.”

“I’m only using Lipton.” Dick defends. He pauses. “And it’s not a high school drama, I’m just trying to work out the problems between Lew and I.”

Lip, of course, chooses that moment to run back in, this time with barely held laughter. He gives Buck a quick salute then turns to Dick and says, “Nixon told me to ask you if you hate him.”

Before Dick has a chance to reply, an amused Buck cuts in with, “Did he say ‘check yes or no,’ too?”

Lip snorts inelegantly and Dick sighs.

***

When his foxhole tarp opens and someone slides in, Nix immediately slides over, tucking his flask into his jacket and shying away from the cold and the light. A moment after that, he realizes his mistake in not checking to see if it was Dick first, and the panic causes him to jump to his feet and send the tarp flying into a nearby tree.

Below him, George Luz is frozen in a half sitting position, looking slightly frightened.

“I, uh, just wanted to ask you something, sir.”

A passing Bill Guarnere gives him an odd look but picks up the tarp and hands it back to him, saying, “You should use that on the Krauts, sir—scarin’ ‘em to death.”

Nix sits back down.

The tarp is haphazardly covering half the foxhole now, and Luz looks hesitant, so Nix doesn’t say anything and instead huddles in his corner and hopes Luz will go away.

“R _iiii_ ght.” Luz says eventually. He stands. “Well, I hope you and Captain Winters work out that sexual tension soon.”

He ducks away before Nixon can form a full response, grinning to himself and giving a thumbs up to someone Nix can’t see.

Nix sighs.

***

Liebgott is angry.

He’s angry that Easy got stuck with the shit job of holding the line at Bastogne, he’s angry that the Ardennes is full of death and blood, and he’s angry that David Webster has such a tight hold on him that he actually _misses_ the stupid bastard.

He’s angry that Web isn’t there at Bastogne, isn’t suffering with the rest of them, but then he’s angry with himself for thinking that because the absolute last thing he wants is Web suffering. A part of him is glad that he never has to see Web crouching in terror in a shallow foxhole while the Germans rain hell on them, but then he thinks about how having Web so far away makes him anxious and clouds his mind, and it all just turns in a never ending circle of _soulmates are fucking stupid_.

He wants to see Web again and make sure he isn’t dead from his dumb leg wound, that the truck he was in didn’t get intercepted and captured. He wants to speak to Web and tell him that he hates him for joining the paratroopers and transferring to Easy, but the word “hate” feels heavy on his tongue and he realizes he could never really hate David Webster like he wants to.

In his dreams, Lieb dreams about kissing Web’s stupid, perpetually open mouth.

Awake, he shakes it off with some of Captain Nixon’s stash of alcohol and a crude joke with Alley and Popeye.

Sometimes, when he’s left alone in a foxhole, he runs his fingers over the letters branded onto the inside of his wrist, and thinks of life after the war.

(Life after war with Web, he admits to himself during the worst shellings and coldest nights.)

Joe Liebgott is lost.

***

Babe wakes up the next morning to Gene suddenly gasping, and a flare of light illuminating their foxhole.

He’s warm and more content than he’s been since leaving home and is really tempted to just kiss Gene right there and get the entire _I am actually in love with you and by the way you’re my soulmate_ business out of the way.

Then, Gene shifts, unwraps his arms from around Babe, and says, “You alright, or can I go make some rounds?”

Babe clears his throats and untangles himself from the medic’s hold, scooting as far away as he can in the limited space and ignoring the sick feeling it gives him. “I’m fine. Go do your medic thing, Gene.”

Gene gives him a _you’re lying_ look, but leaves anyway, telling Babe that he’ll be back later and to go get something to eat and drink.

All the exchange does, really, is reiterate the fact that Gene Roe is too good from some skinny ginger from South Philly, and Babe sinks back into the foxhole, eyes closed with scenes of Julian drowning in his own blood and Gene dying playing on his eyelids.

***

Eugene Roe didn’t join to be a medic.

Granted, no one really does.

He signs up, he goes to Toccoa, and they take one look at his hands and hear his calming voice and say, “You’d be a really great medic.” Ten minutes later, a patch is being sown onto his uniform and he’s being handed a bag full of a supplies and directions to where the medics are being specially trained.

He still trains with Easy—earns his jump wings with the best of them, becomes friends with a few guys. They all like him and think his accent is fascinating, Skip Muck tells him that if he were dying in battle he’d be fine if Gene’s face was the last thing he saw, and his voice the last thing he heard. Gene gives him a flat look and a, “Better hope you don’t die, Muck.”

Muck laughs.

Years later they jump and it’s a nightmare.

Months after, Babe Heffron joins their ranks and it’s even worse.

There’s a constant _thing_ nagging at him, telling him to follow Babe during fights, to check on him before and after, to get close to him and make him smile. Granted, Babe smiles enough as it is, but Gene wants to make him smile at him. Something special.

(And if he has a few dreams about the loud-mouthed ginger, there’s nothing to blame but the lack of good old Louisiana weather.)

\---

Bastogne is horrible.

Bastogne cuts and cuts him until the warmth spills out of his body. It freezes soldiers that could have been saved, rattles already tired bones, and makes the trees explode. It destroys Easy on a deeper level than any of them expected and it makes Gene want to scream.

It kills John Julian.

Julian was a nice kid, Gene remembers. A bright-eyed replacement, young, blathering on about how he’d heard so much about the paratroopers, how his mom had been so proud of him. Mostly, Gene remembers how Babe would talk to him like a friend and how he would tell Julian stories and how he would call over people to recall battles they’d fought and wounds they’d suffered.

So when Julian was killed—far away from where Gene could do a thing about it, he has to remind himself—something goes out in Babe.  
He huddles in a circle with the other boys, dutifully eats his shitty rations, and lets Captain Winters send him back to his foxhole even though they all know it’s his turn to sit on the line.

Gene watches him quietly, feels a curl of pain inside him, and turns away.

He feels something for Babe Heffron, is the thing. He knows he does but there aren’t any names on wrists to prove it and he feels like he’s encroaching on something he shouldn’t. Gene wants to ask Babe about it, has been building a calm sort of courage to lead up to it, but then Julian happened and the less selfish part of him pushed it away in favor of his friend’s well-being.

In the end, Gene just holds Babe and waits for answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah I tired to make this longer to make up for the really long period of nothing, but then I ran out of steam so you get a little over 3k. I promise the next update will be a lot sooner.
> 
> Also, sorry for jumping around so much oop.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skip Muck and Donald Malarkey become friends the very moment they meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [Heather](http://www.liebgottjosephd-sir.tumblr.com) for beta-ing.

Skip Muck and Donald Malarkey become friends the very moment they meet.

At Toccoa, their bunks are next to each other, they share a stand, and Sobel targets them almost immediately.  It’s not hard to forge some sort of bond through all that, but there’s more to it. Obviously, neither of them is willing to admit to the  _pull_ they feel toward each other, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent.

(Penkala always feels a little bit left out, but he doesn’t say a word.)

So, they become closer and closer as years and friends and places pass. Their friendship evolves from good mornings and sitting next to each other in the mess hall, to “wake the fuck up, fucker” and an on-going and unspoken war to scare the shit out of each other.

Muck sometimes lies in bed and thinks “ _I could live with Don Malarkey for the rest of my life,_ ” but dismisses it with thoughts of strong friendships and happiness. He doesn’t let himself think of how sometimes he wants to puke-in-a-good-way around Don, or how he catches himself staring sometimes, or how Don gives him this certain  _look_  and he doesn’t know what it means, but he sure as hell isn’t going to think too much about it.

\---

It’s Nixon and Winters, the infamously oblivious duo, that clue him in.

He watches with muted amusement as Winters checks on everyone and pointedly answers anything about Nixon’s whereabouts with a curt “He’s sleeping.” Of course, they all know their beloved intelligence officer is probably drunk off his ass, but there’s something in Winters’ frustration and the tone of his voice that clues into more. Muck can’t define it, but everyone and their mother can see that the situation is much more personal than Nixon’s drinking problem.

(And how anything can be more  _personal_  than having an alcoholic best friend in the middle of a war, he’s not sure, but there are feelings involved, and that’s all he needs to know.)

After Winters leaves, he turns to Don to crack some joke about “mommy and daddy,” but he gets beaten to the punch by Moore, who says with a sigh, “I wish they’d consider how hard a divorce would be on all their children.”

Everyone laughs.

Don quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head toward Muck, saying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Well, I want Mom to have full custody, she’s more fun.”

There’s another round of laughter, and Muck can’t stop himself from grinning at the half-assed joke.

(He feels ridiculous.)

\---

He’s going to blame everything, later, on the war and the Krauts and his sudden aversion to thinking logically and being self-aware.

There are letters curled neatly on his right wrist, and he knows what it means but he doesn’t let himself acknowledge it. He ignores the name there, forces himself to not read it, and forgets.

(And he knows it appeared two years ago, but that isn’t something he needs to linger on at all.)

So when he finally lets his guard down—in the back of a truck bump its way toward somewhere cold, contemplating in a huddle of warm bodies about how much he would like some of Mama Muck’s cooking—his eyes alight on the name and his entire world crumbles.

 _Donald G. Malarkey_ is squeezed onto his inner wrist, and he feels a burning sensation in him that has nothing to do with his magical tattoo.

Someone asks if he’s alright and he says a quick, cheerful, “Yeah, it’s all good. Just freezin’ my ass off.” Then crosses his arms and stuffs his hands inside his thin coat, pressing his wrist to his chest and feeling a little bit like he’d be better off deserting if it means not having to look Don in the face.

The ride to whatever hellhole they’re being stationed at next is long and filled with complaining men and Liebgott repeating every few minutes that he really fucking needs to take a piss. Muck curls into himself and tries to ignore the persistent attempts of Don and Alex to engage him in some of the good-natured ribbing being thrown around.

They get there and it’s an absolute shitfest.

He forces himself to forget his own angst for a moment and starts mooching supplies off the returning soldiers, feeling a twinge of remorse, and cracks a nervous joke with a wide-eyed Babe. The soldiers that shuffle past look like death and hell wrapped in bandages and empty eyes, and Muck thinks it’s the most frightening thing he’ll see the entire war.

Eventually, they move out and Muck finds gravitating toward Don without really thinking about it. With an internal sigh, he stops fighting it and instead returns his best friend’s smile and instead focuses on the uneven road the company struggles on, already tired and cold.

He accepts the smoke Don offers him silently and tells himself they’re standing so close to keep warm.

“You alright?” Don asks after almost an hour of silence.

“Yeah.” Muck says, voice cracking a little. “I’m just fine, Don. Thanks.”

Don gives him an incredulous look but doesn’t push it. Instead, he says, “Just try not to get too thoughtful on me, Penk decided to think all week.”

“Hey!” Alex protests. “I think all the time, just not before I speak.”

“Yeah, now you’re never going to talk.”

“The dead of winter is the best time to think, alright, Don.”

Muck snorts. “If you’re actually  _warm_ , sure.”

“Stop bringing me down, guys.” Alex complains. “We’re all tired; I figured I may as well get some childhood traumas talked out with myself before anything bad happens.”

“Just don’t think too hard.” Muck advises. “You don’t want to make yourself implode.”

Alex rolls his eyes and Don grins, elbowing him. His voice is quiet and hurt and understanding all at once when he says, “There you are.”

“Yeah.” He agrees, tightening his arms around himself. “Here I am.”

***

Throughout his entire career as a paratrooper, Webster never thought he would be the one to go AWOL from the hospital.

Sure, he’s heard all the heroic tales, heard of how it’s strongly encouraged, but he’s not here to be a hero, and he’s definitely not here to die in a remote forest in the dead of winter.

Regardless, he stops feeling sorry for himself one day and wakes the fuck up. He stops thinking too much, stops composing lyrical prose, stops regretting his choices and his existence, and  _gets up_.

There are people he cares about, for one, and he does, in fact, have some sense of pride. Heroism may not be his goal, but you can’t be a soldier without dreaming of the Medal of Honor. So, he limps out of the hospital and, not long after, hops off a jeep to yells of, “ _Hey,_ Webster! College boy decided to join us!” and “Never thought I’d see the day.”

He’s not sure who says what, but then he’s engulfed in slaps on the back and people congratulating him on growing some balls and it doesn’t really matter. He gives them a tight smile and says, “Couldn’t let you all die alone, right?” And then everyone laughs and he feels a little bit like he’s come home.

(He doesn’t miss how the one person he wants to see doesn’t greet him, but instead slinks away with a dark look. He reports to Winters without another word.)

(He also makes a point to ignore the growing sense of panic in his stomach and the fact that this was all probably a bad idea but, well, you can’t make friends and write a good story without risking your life more than once.)

“Glad you decided to go AWOL, Private.” Winters says with a friendly smile. “We could use all the men we can get.”

“The hospital got boring, anyway.” Web says nonchalantly. “I missed sleeping in strange places and eating one meal a day.”

Winters laughs a little at that then pats his shoulder. “Go find Peacock or Compton, they’ll set you up with a nice foxhole.”

Webs salutes and thanks Winters, then leaves.

Without the newness of his Triumphant Return gathering everyone around him, he finally gets to observe the forest. And, even this far into the war, he can’t help but compose some sort of prose—a way to describe the world around him, words to convey the cold and the beauty and the absolute feeling of  _death_.

For one, Bastogne sparkles.

There are broken trees and broken soldiers, but nature lives in its sparkle and shine, in the patches of untouched snow, in the warm cups of water passed between friends and acquaintances alike. There is a sort of fierce protectiveness that comes with Bastogne, Web realizes, in which replacements are treated more fair than he ever remembered. Food and water and foxholes and body heat are shared, and all sense of personal space is eliminated. The overhanging darkness oppresses the weak sunlight snaking through tree branches and makes the place feel like a final resting place. (For many, it is.)

Overall, though, Bastogne makes Easy more of a family than before, and Webster can’t help but feel proud of the resilience of human life, even on the front lines of what’s turning into a hopeless and never ending battle.

Lost in thought, God smiles maliciously down on him and he stumbles into Joseph Liebgott’s.

After the initial confused yells of “what the  _hell_?” there is dead silence. After a beat, Alley scrambles out and away, looking vaguely terrified and wildly gesturing at Doc Roe to turn around and run the other way.

Joe stares at him.

“Joey!” Web blurts. He stands and steadies himself uncertainly, looking down at a blank-faced Joe. “I, uh—”

“When the fuck did we get close enough for you to call me  _Joey_?” There’s anger and resentment and something akin to guilt, but Web elects to ignore all those in favor of sitting back down gingerly in front of Joe. When the silence begins leaning toward awkward, he speaks up again. “And watch where you’re going, Webster.”

Web clears his throat. “Thanks for the warm welcome.” He says.

(And that’s not really what he meant to say but Joe always does this to him  _goddamn_.)

“You’re welcome.” Joe answers with a half-sneer. “Glad to see you had fun in the hospital for two months.”

( _I missed you._ ) “Still having pissing contests, then?”

“If it passes the time in this place.” The shred of honesty in Joe’s voice throws him for a moment, and he’s left scrambling for something to say.

“Who needs Berlin, right?”

Joe snorts. “Right.”

Before he can really stop himself, Web says, “I’m sorry.”

Joe straightens up. “You better fuckin’ be.”

Web frowns. “You didn’t ask what I’m sorry for.”

“Well, I don’t have to. I figure there’re a dozen things for you to say sorry for.”

Later, he’ll wonder how months hasn’t waned Joe Liebgott’s ability to rile him up within seconds. For now, though, he stands and doesn’t try to mask his anger. “You’re such a pompous  _ass_.”

Joe laughs loudly at that, waving his arms in what Web assumes is supposed to be an imitation of him. (And there’s a flash there, of something dark and elaborate and his stomach drops right through him and into the ground.) “ _Pompous_? Really? Big words don’t make you any more insulting, Webster.”

A million things pass through his throat and mind, but all that comes out is, “fuck you.” And then he’s storming away with the grace of a five-year-old.

Web hates himself for assuming he could have a civil and meaningful conversation with someone like Joseph Liebgott, but he hates himself more for not telling Joe he could damn well see  _David K. Webster_ written on the inside of his wrist.

***

Carwood Lipton is first introduced to Ronald Speirs on D-Day.

Rather, one of the boys points him out, cites a story about a drunken Private, shudders, then walks way.

Carwood is immediately enchanted.

Besides the initial mystery factor that comes with a fearless CO like Speirs, there’s something about the toothy smiles he gives Winters. There’s something about the way he walks and the way he holds his gun and the way his voice is perfect for the army. The ruthlessness in his body language and the coldness in his eyes have Carwood obliquely asking after him more than once. More than once, though, he’s given with a vague answer and a wave somewhere to the right or left. More than once, he barely misses an opportunity to actually speak to Speirs.

But something stronger than the Carwood’s stalkerish tendencies and the cohesiveness of the Airborne draws them together and, finally, they speak.

“Carwood Lipton,” Speirs says with this signature smile. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“And you, sir.” Carwood replies, shaking his hand firmly ( _a thrill_ ). “Although, I wasn’t aware that anyone outside of Easy knew my name.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant.” He says evenly. “But I have taken a significant interest in you.”

“Really?” Carwood almost raises an eyebrow, but decides that’s too much and instead angles himself closer. There’s a warm feeling blooming through him and he’s  _this_ close to figuring out just where their conversation is going.

“Well,” Speirs says with the casualty of someone ordering wine, “considering your name is tattooed on my body, you’re kind of hard to avoid.” He tugs up the sleeve on his right arm and holds out it out, turning his arm over so Carwood can get a better look at the inside of his wrist. “ _Clifford C. Lipton_ , huh?”

Carwood knows he should be shocked or at least in denial of some sort about this, but instead he stares at his name, then at Speirs’ face, then lingers on the genuine smile that’s threatening to tug at the older man’s lips. He smiles a bit. “I feel more justified in following you around, now.”

Speirs raises an eyebrow. “That explains why it feels like we’ve been going in circles.”

Carwood laughs and lets himself relax. “At least we aren’t winding around and around the same issue like Winters and Nixon.”

But then Speirs is kissing him, holding Carwood’s chin in one of his hands, gentle and loving. The past ten minutes were probably the very last thing Carwood ever expected to come out of Holland, but now Speirs is here and he feels complete in a way he’s never felt.

( _Not_  complete, he thinks vaguely,  _more like—I’ve been looking for one thing my whole life, and now it’s finally here and I can be happy_.)

(He doesn’t mention any of these thoughts to Speirs.)

He subconsciously registers some wolf whistling and a loud “hell yeah, they know how it’s supposed to go,” but mostly he’s focused on Speirs’ stubble and his own name breathed against his lips by the most enigmatic and threatening man in the entire ETO.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOA I'M REALLY SORRY I SUCK I KNOW I'M SORRY
> 
> if it helps I already started chapter six and also if anyone ever feels like I'm taking too long (again), you should just come bother me about it on tumblr (zitkaa), because I'll probably feel guilty enough to do something.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronald Speirs is _amazing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not beta'd due to impatience.

Ronald Speirs is _amazing_.

Which, really, isn’t saying much because everyone already knew that—but.

But none of those people know Ron like Carwood knows him.

And, yeah, he does mean in terms of sexual prowess, but also just. In general.

The Rumored-to-be-Insane Captain Speirs is a lot less frightening when you witness him miserably waking up at 6am sharp, like he would much rather be dead than awake and could also possibly _be_ dead, given the entire lack of coherency at that time of the morning.

Now Carwood knows why no one ever sees him before 8am even though he was obviously up and about with the sun.

It’s like an 8th World Wonder, he thinks. Ron Speirs _is_ a wonder—a marvel of the universe, an anomaly and enigma, wrapped in questions and legends and toothy smiles.

He’s never felt so privileged in his entire life.

He also thinks he’s never been so _happy_ which is, really, a great feat considering their current situation. But it’s true—Carwood is happy and more than a little bit in love, war and Hitler be damned.

The entire thing makes him feel almost juvenile and petty but, really, who can begrudge him? He’s been mature and responsible his entire life, maybe sacrificing a little bit of that for the sake of love is just what he needs. Plus, you know, _soulmate_. He’s not going to pass that up—he’s not going to pass up on _Ron_ —just because he thinks he should be a little more responsible.

Joining the paratroops and surviving this far and leading the men as he has is _responsible_. He deserves this. He deserves to be happy.

And, yeah, maybe he is trying to justify his actions (there might sometimes be hand holding and cuddling and kissing when there are lulls and quiet talks about a future they refuse to acknowledge might not happen because now even Ron is loosening up and there’s another privilege Jesus Christ) but that doesn’t make what he feels any less true. That doesn’t make what they’ve built in mere weeks any less real.

He’s happy and he’s going to have several words for whoever tries to mess things up for him.

\---

Carwood wakes up on Christmas Eve to a miserable and sober Lewis Nixon body slamming him.

His initial response is to curse loudly and demand Nixon immediately explain himself, but, considering he was Carwood Lipton, he instead gently removes Nixon from his person and stands up. Nixon doesn’t move, obviously wallowing, and simply lies on his side at the bottom of Carwood’s foxhole.

With a sigh, Carwood sits back down and gives Nixon a sympathetic look despite not really knowing what was going on. “You’re lucky Ron wasn’t here, he would have shot you.”

Nixon snorts. “That’s more unfortunate, then.”

Carwood frowns. “Unfortunate that he would have shot you or that he’s not here to shoot you?”

“The last one.”

“Ah.” Carwood says. He glances around uncertainly, hoping to see Welsh or Winters emerge from the tree line to help him out, but the forest is as quiet as it’s ever been, and there’s not much left to do except suck it up and have what could potentially be an awkward conversation with one of his higher ups. “So, is there something you needed help with, sir?”

Nixon sighs heavily and rolls onto his back, seemingly unaware or unconcerned with the probably uncomfortable position his entire body has contorted into thanks to the shape of Carwood’s foxhole. “See, Lipton, it’s just—” He sighs again, heavier this time.

Carwood shifts and tries not to feel too odd when he asks, “Does this have something to do with Captain Winters, sir?”

At the name, Nixon practically jumps out of his skin. Sitting up now, he gives Carwood a crazed and terrified look, filled to the brim with tension and looking like he was two seconds away from an aneurysm.  “How did you know?” His voice is high when he asks.

“Well.”

“Has he said something to you?”

“Well, no, sir. It’s just—”

“Have _you_ said something to _him_?”

Quickly, Carwood rushes out, “Well, sir, for one: I played mediator when you two had a ‘conversation’ the other day. For another, even the boys in Dog and Fox can see the sexual tension between you two. Actually, _Joe Liebgott_ can see the sexual tension between you two; it isn’t all that difficult to see and you’ve been obvious since Normandy. At the least.”

Nixon stares at him, open mouthed, for at least a solid minute.

Carwood eventually manages a half-apologetic smile and an awkward pat on Nixon’s knee. “I’m absolutely confident things will turn out fine. Sir.”

“Your absolute confidence can’t tell me what he’d _say_.”

“To be honest,” Carwood says, “he most likely already knows.”

Nixon looks startled at that, like it’s actually a _surprise_ to him. “ _How_?”

Carwood coughs and begins his internal search for a semi-solid excuse to run away and never come back. “You’re not exactly, uh, subtle. Like I said.”

At this point, Nixon looks inclined to burst into tears. He rubs his hands of his face and tilts his head back, obviously lamenting the state of his life, and makes a gurgling, inhuman sound. “Jesus Christ.”

Ron, naturally, chooses that moment to slide gracefully into the foxhole. He smiles almost shyly at Carwood before turning to Nixon and putting on his “ _I hate dealing with other people’s shit_ ” face.

“Everything alright, Captain?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.

“I need a goddamn drink.”

Carwood snorts.

“With all due respect, sir.” Ron says. “Go wallow somewhere else. Preferably near Captain Winters.”

Nixon’s voice is filled with horror and fright when he shouts “ _No_.” He climbs gracelessly out of the foxhole, and then proceeds to flee at top speed (which isn’t very fast for a depressive and already lazy man such as himself) in the direction of not-Winters.

Carwood makes a sad attempt at hiding his amusement. “Let’s hope things turn out fine for everyone’s sake.”

Ron quirks his lips. “Don’t worry about it, Carwood. True love always wins, right?”

“ _Right_.”

Ron laughs.

***

When David Webster returns, something inexplicable shifts in the air. It might be Joe Liebgott’s open rage, or Lewis Nixon finally leaving his foxhole for more than five minutes, or maybe the depression that his boys have been sinking further and further into. Point is, the air changes and Gene knows _something wicked this way comes_.

It’s not as if the weather has gotten worse or the Krauts more violent—contrary, the environment around them remains still and deadly and everything it was two days ago. But, now, there’s a sort of anxiety that invades everyone, accompanied by a loud soundtrack of “ _fuck you_ ” “no fuck _you_ ,” courtesy of Liebgott & Webster Inc.

Honestly, Gene thinks, the show they put on would be hilarious if they were, say, all in college. High school, even. The drama could definitely be a source of amusement along with annoyance—except they aren’t in college or high school and it’s all just downright annoying. Even Winters, infamous for his never-ending patience and understanding eyes, starts getting antsy and irritated around Day Five.

But then it’s sad, too, because Gene knows they were once on the way to becoming great friends. Most likely much more than friends—if any patterns he’s seen with the love lives of Easy Company as a whole are taken into consideration. More than that, it’s ridiculous and drains all remaining energy anyone has and Gene, several times, has heard plots to lock the two in a house in Bastogne and not let them out for two weeks.

It’s not a _bad_ idea, per se. Just—they’d probably benefit more from a few hours in a secluded closet.

Not to mention Gene’s own issues with one Babe Heffron, and the issue with Winters and Nixon, and how Lipton and Speirs are always happy and touching each other, and how Welsh can’t stop being sad about being so far away from his girl, how even Muck and Luz and Guarnere get more and more reserved as the days pass, how Dike just continually frustrates even the mostly-clueless Peacock. Overall, it does have the whole _college_ feel, but—but. Well.

Things would be a hell of a whole lot easier if they were in college.

Except they aren’t—they’re all in Bastogne and they’re all juggling Company-wide drama and World War and it’s not an ideal situation but, somehow, they’ve all made it this far. They aren’t going to give up now, no matter how irritating Webster and Liebgott can be. Even if Gene can’t find a shred of optimism within himself, he feels hope just looking at his boys—fighting and surviving and sometimes even _smiling_.

Things could be worse.

How, he’s not sure, but he _knows_ deep in himself.

(They could be at home—could have never met each other, could have never even known that the standing dynamic was something that could exist, could have never _known_ at all. They could have never known that they would all find some sort of purpose in fighting and dying for a country that wasn’t always reliable or moral, that they would meet the most important people they would ever know _here_.)

(That would be a lot worse.)

***

Nothing specific has changed in the Ardennes, but Babe knows that Easy’s time in Bastogne is drawing to a close. The line is stretched as thin as it can possibly go, the Krauts are insistently pushing closer and closer, and hope only exists in the vaguest and most unpredictable sparks of life. But Babe has heard rumors and has seen the towns and he knows that Easy won’t lose any more men to his particular section of the Belgian forests—not if anyone can help it.

Of course, that gut feeling doesn’t mean much, but it’s the only thing that gets Babe out of his foxhole at the crack of dawn and ducking around toward a lonely part of the line.

He sits, alone, for hours, before hearing the crunch of snow under boots and knowing, instinctively, that it’s Gene Roe, come to complete his rounds.

( _Obligatory concern_ , his mind says, but the rest of him is so damn numb that he can’t even muster up the energy for some proper self-pity.)

They make quiet small talk for a bit, then Babe goes to rub at his already flaming-red nose, and he hears The Medic wake up in Gene.

"How'd you do that?"

Babe frowns blankly down at the cut crossing his palm, taking a moment to register the shallow wound that still stings a little. When he speaks, his voice comes out slow and cracking. "You did that."

Gene tugs gently on his hand and Babe his head to frown at the man in front of him instead of his hand. “I’ll fix it up.” He says, already pulling out something blue and decidedly not bandage-looking, leaning into Babe all the while. Babe knows he’d be nervous and jumpy in any other situation, but he feels like all his energy has been eaten by the enemy, and he can’t bring himself to worry at all about the world around him. Short of getting killed or almost-killed, he’s mostly sure nothing could snap him out of his current trance.

There are more words said by Gene but then the world narrows to sensations—cold air, warm fingers, _thrill._ Gene is holding Babe’s hand in his own, fingers nimble even in their half-frozen state, gentle as they wrap around Babe’s almost delicate wrist.

Time stops.

(This, he thinks, can go under the _almost-killed_ category.)

Babe is acutely aware of the way Gene has his wrist turned, all too conscious of what Gene must be processing in his mind at that very moment.

(He wishes, in a moment of desperation, that he never existed, or was born without arms, or never, ever joined the Paratroops. Desperation doesn’t take long to seamlessly melt into absolute panic.)

He will shamelessly admit to considering making a run for it. Whether that meant straight toward the Germans, well, dying of embarrassment is probably more painful than dying of gunshot wounds. Unfortunately—or fortunately, he’s still not sure—Gene tightens his grip and pulls Babe closer to him.

There’s been a thing bothering him since Holland and, now, it unravels and bursts forth and spills out of Babe in a ramble and flushed cheeks and frantic mind. He feels like he’s at the receiving end of a couple hundred mortar shells and maybe five dozen sensitive fireworks. The _thing_ makes him say, “I’m sorry” and also, “I’m really fuckin’ sorry” but mostly, “fuck fuck _fuck_.” And now there’s overwhelming panic contrasting with a strange warmth and a falling sensations but then— _then_ —

“Babe.”

He stops.

Gene is smiling now, wry and raw and whole all at once.

Gene repeats, “ _Babe,_ ” then kisses him.

Babe’s thing stops bursting forth and instead explodes out of him in undulated waves of _happiness_ that rivals almost every other emotion he ever remembers experiencing. Now, the pain seeps from his bones and he feels warm to his very core. Now, he kisses Gene with the intensity and force of nature. Babe thinks, _everything I’ve ever done has been leading to this_ , but then Gene shifts just that bit—curls his fingers under Babe’s helmet and into his thin hair, opens his mouth, presses forward—and instead he thinks, _everything I do will be for him_.

When Gene pulls away some immeasurable time afterwards, the first thing he does is press his forehead to Babe’s and _grin_.

The only way to describe the sensation, really, is like seeing the sun after forever and a day of darkness and confusion.

And, in that moment, he’s very, very grateful for the scrawl of letters on his wrist and the serendipity of meeting someone as incredible as Gene Roe. Every worry that once plagued him and destroyed him and kept him silent and stressed disappears in a moment of pure bliss. His trance-like state seems to vanish into thin air and he suddenly feels like he could conquer the world all by himself.

(He still feels like he’s falling, but it’s a good sort of falling. It’s falling toward Gene, away from dark, toward _good_ things. Jesus Christ, of all the things he expected to happen in Bastogne. _Of all the things_. Goddamn soulmates.)

(Not to mention that he realizes they could be fuckin’ POWs and he’d be happy—right then and there, in that single moment with Gene touching him and smiling at him and letting everything go. As cliché as it sounds, he does, in fact, get lost in Gene’s eyes. Again: goddamn _soulmates._ )

“Hey, Gene.” Babe says after a ridiculous amount of time spent making eyes at each other. “You called me babe.”

Gene tilts his head slightly and attempts to give Babe a stern look. “No, I didn’t.”

Babe replies with a bad imitation of Gene’s low, Cajun drawl. “ _Baaaaabe_.”

“Heffron.” Gene says. He shakes his head, smiling openly, and then kisses Babe again, quick and comfortable and already easy and natural. “Watch the goddamn line.”

He sticks his tongue out, immature as hell and with no regrets.“Stop _distractin’_ me then.”

There are a lot of things Babe Heffron is grateful for, but hearing Eugene Roe laugh like that—just for him, with him, while giving him that _look_ —definitely deserves a spot in his top five.

\---

(They sleep in the same foxhole that night, and Bill’s later high-five is accompanied with an embarrassingly obvious eyebrow waggle. Babe kicks him.)

\---

(Another _thing_ makes itself known soon after—it’s not a good thing, this time. He knows that. But he ignores it favor of kissing Gene until they can’t breathe.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I should just stop apologizing and making promises because we all know I won't keep to them w h o o p s.  
> 2\. disregarding that, I do promise to have another chapter up by the end of the month because I swear to God I'm half way finished with it and am currently on a roll therefore I'm going to keep writing today.  
> 3\. after the next update, I can say for sure there won't be anything new until July at the earliest. I'm going on vacation, won't have access to a computer, etc etc, but I will at least attempt to write some more while on the plane and beach and stuff ok wow I'm sorry please forgive me.


	7. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Two billion people on this fucking earth and I had to be stuck with that goddamn asshole.”

“Two billion people on this fucking earth and I had to be stuck with that goddamn asshole.”

Skinny sighs.

“Seriously, Skinny, what the _fuck_?”

“I think,” Skinny says slowly, “you’re being stupid.”

Joe frowns at him.

“Look.” He sighs again. “ _Look_. You love him, you’re meant for each other, _whatever_. Why can’t you just fuckin’ say something to him about it?”

“Because he’s an _asshole_.”

“You’re an asshole!”

“He’s a _pretentious_ asshole.”

“Jesus Christ, Joe.” Perconte says, throwing himself in their foxhole and nearly crushing Skinny. “Get your head out of your ass and fucking _carpe diem_. Swear to god, I’ll tell him myself if you don’t do something soon.”

“Don’t get in my business, Frank.” Joe says.

“It’s not just your business anymore, Joe.” Guarnere says as he walks by. Turning to walk backwards, he (unnecessarily) yells, “it’s been everyone’s business when you started takin’ out your sexual frustration on everyone else. And _not_ in the fun way.”

“Fuck you, Bill.” He yells back.

“’S true.” Skinny points out. Joe gives him a narrow-eyed, dirty look.

Skinny runs.

(Well, if you ask him later, he’ll say he calmly left his foxhole and left to find one soft-spoken Southerner because Shifty never looks like he’s going to murder someone. Joe, on the other hand, well.)

(He definitely jogged quickly, though.)

“Really, Joe.” Perconte says after watching Skinny leave. “Even Nixon—you know, heartbroken, love-sick Captain Nixon—is getting annoyed by you. _Winters_ is getting annoyed. I’m pretty sure Christenson is ready to murder you both.”

“Fuck you, too.” Joe mutters.

Perconte rolls his eyes. “Don’t say I didn’t try to help you out.”

When Joe is alone, he’s struck with how much this is all unfolding to be like a high school drama.

Frowning, he says, “Goddammit.”

***

“Hey, Luz, you ever notice something about this Company?”

Luz gives Harry a flat look. “Tell me, Harry, what should I have noticed?”

Harry ignores the tone in Luz’s voice in favor of leaning in conspiringly. “Half of the guys here are here with their _soulmates_ for God’s sake. What the hell’s up with that?”

“I don’t think it’s half the guys.”

“Alright, a handful at least. What are the chances of that?”

Luz sighs. “I dunno, Harry, obviously a lot.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I found Kitty back home, but— _really_. The chances? And considering, you know, the situation and all. Damn.”

“Not exactly ideal.”

“Nah, not ideal.”

“And all of those guys,” Luz says after a long stretch of silence, “you’ll notice, are being really fuckin’ oblivious about it. Or just dramatic.”

“ _Right_? Crazy shit here, George.”

“Yeah, Harry, pretty crazy.”

***

“I’ve got a plan.” Babe announces proudly to an attentive crowd of one and a half (the half being a half-asleep Ralph Spina, and the one being Gene).

Gene raises an eyebrow and suppresses a smile. “A plan for what, Babe?”

“A _plan_ ,” Babe says dramatically, “to get Webster and Liebgott to stop fucking around and fuck each other already.”

Spina splutters to full consciousness, giving Babe a highly alarmed look. Babe doesn’t even offer an apologetic smile and instead plows on.

“I mean, really, Gene, Ralph,” he tumbles into their foxhole and unashamedly cuddles up next to Gene, “it’s been months. Even while Web was gone, y’know? There was all that fuckin’ tension.”

“We probably shouldn’t intervene.” Gene points out.

“Probably not.” Babe agrees. He says, “But someone’s gonna murder them before they can get to the fun part with soulmates, so I think we should.” He peers around Gene to Ralph for support.

“S’long as I don’t have to kiss anyone.” Ralph says, nodding sagely.

 “Look,” Babe says, settling back beside Gene. “I’m just sayin’—it ain’t gonna be that hard to get the other boys in on it, right? Everyone sees how they are and everyone just wants all the goddamn tension to go away, so.”

“So,” Gene says, “naturally we have to set up a couple of dumb friends.” He quirks his head a little and Babe grins.

“Yeah, Gene, _naturally_.”

 “ _Look_ ,” Babe says again over Ralph’s snort of laughter, “it’ll be good for everyone in the long run, right? And it sure as hell can’t hurt to try. C’mon, guys.” He offers his most innocent grin.

(And Gene, of course, can’t help but give into that ridiculous smile of Babe’s. Not that he was ever able to resist, but the introduction of kissing into their relationship didn’t help any miniscule amount of ground he’d ever been able to hold against Babe’s outlandish plans or, you know, Babe in general. _Not_ that he’d been involved in any previous outlandish plans, but word gets passed quickly through the Easy Company Grapevine, and Gene had no doubts about just how devious Babe Heffron could be. He should have known this would happen.)

“As _long_ ,” Ralph reiterates, “as I don’t have to kiss anyone.”

Babe’s grin widens and he reaches around Gene to pat the older medic’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Ralph, you’ll just be bait for Liebgott.”

Ralph pales.

Babe clarifies through a shit-eating grin, "But you won't have to kiss him."  


"Fuck you, Heffron."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. sorry for shortness but I did promise another chapter so here is another chapter  
> 2\. the next one will be a lot meatier  
> 3\. the next chapter will definitely not be up until July at the earliest, but most likely August or September if we're being realistic. I'll try to write while I'm gone but don't get your hopes up.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO. SORRY.

The week leading up to the Battle of Foy is a nightmare.

After Christmas, the lethargic lull that had blanketed the Ardennes forest almost immediately lifts, replaced by an unexpected barrage of mortars and splintered trees and a dark cloud that overshadows even Captain Winters.

Scratch that, things don’t shift after Christmas, but no—when Welsh was hit, when Bastogne burst into flames in the distance, too far for anyone to do much of anything.

Easy picks up and moves sometime after that.

The next place they return to is no better. Here, the trees seemed taller, the stars further, and safety nonexistent.

Luz spends a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing. He curls up in foxholes, uneasy, cold, waiting to die, and—more often than not—grumbling mentally about the rampant drama in their company. Everyone else looked like they were doing the same, if not less.

Warmth is a long past memory, the only boys who seem to find it are Doc Roe and Babe, cuddling out of love and commitment or whatever the hell it is. Webster and Liebgott seem to get plenty warm from just glaring at each other, but Luz expects that’s not as satisfying as what Babe and Doc Roe have.

On the other hand, they all do get entertainment out of watching to two go at it day and night, like a pair of sexually frustrated piranhas.

Muck and Malarkey, though.

Luz doesn’t understand their apparent need to dance around each other. Webster and Liebgott he gets—they’re both stubborn assholes—Winters and Nixon he _kind_ of gets—something about authority and Nixon having a lot of problems with expressing his emotions—but, Muck and Malarkey? They’re best friends, for Christ’s sake, there shouldn’t have been anything holding them back.

Sure Muck had that girl back home, but she’d understand, Luz is sure. Probably.

They’re each other’s soulmates, they _know_ it, everyone goddamn knows it, what the fuck else is there to it?

Just thinking about it convinces Luz that he needs to intervene.

But then Joe and Bill get hit, and Luz, well, he doesn’t know how to react. Buck is a goddamn mess, and who even knows if Joe and Bill will live. He can’t seem to comprehend the bloody scene he comes across, two of his friends lying prone on the ravaged ground, tinting the white snow red with their blood.

Later, Luz blows off the stress and the worry and the numb fear inside him by making fun of Dike, trying to hold on to the boy who had imitated voices and made faces and jokes way back at Toccoa. He focuses on what he’d been contemplating before—well, before. Luz watches as Muck and Malarkey lean subconsciously toward each other as they laugh. He wants to grab the two of them and just make them kiss already, yell, “Pull your _goddamn_ selves together.” Instead, he continues his Dike impression.

Minutes later the artillery starts raining down on them again.

He stomps down on his immediate panic as he scrambles toward the nearest foxhole—with Muck and Penkala, he registers faintly—but his limbs feel heavy and his throat feels raw and he _knows_ what’s going to happen before it happens.

One moment, Muck and Penkala are frantically gesturing and yelling at him from the safety of a foxhole, and, the next, they’re just – _gone_. They leave behind nothing but a smoky foxhole, not even bloody, nothing to indicate that two young men with everything in front of them had just lost their lives in that very spot.

It’s all Luz can do to remember to breathe and it’s only thanks to Lip that he manages to stumble out of the open and into a foxhole.

His eyes burn, but whether that’s from tears or flying dirt and heat and splinters, he’ll never know. And, for some reason, he feels compelled to grip Lip’s shoulder, make him meet Luz’s eyes as he yells, “ _Muck and Penkala—Muck and Penkala got hit._ ”

Lip closes his eyes briefly, the only moment of grieving he’ll allow himself, Luz knows, and then reaches up and grips Luz’s elbow. He says, too quiet for Luz to hear but clearly enough that he can read Lipton’s lips, “I’m sorry.”

Luz swallows and nods and digs in to wait out the attack, turning away from Lipton and blinking rapidly.

\---

As soon as the attack ends, Luz can hear Malarkey’s voice quickly destroy the sudden, eerie silence that follows an unrelenting artillery attack.

“Muck!” Malarkey yells. Luz’s hearts sinks and he wearily pulled himself out of the foxhole. “ _Skip_! Where the fuck—fuck fuck _fuck_ —where—“ He spots Luz from 30 feet away and immediately changes course to head straight for him, a desperate look of denial in his eyes. “ _Luz_.” He says. “Luz, have you—Muck. Have you seen—”

“Don.” Luz says in a muted voice. “I’m, ah, I’m sorry. Muck and Penkala, they—”

“ _No_.” Malarkey interrupts. His voice cracks and his Luz can feel the eyes of some of the other guys on the two of them. “No, no, no.”

“Don.” Luz says again.

Malarkey makes a sound, inhuman and grief filled, and falls to his knees. Luz tries to swallow past the thickness in his throat and hesitantly kneels next to his friend. He reaches out and places a hand on Malarkey’s shoulder—the man is shaking, making it obvious that he’s crying. Luz’s grip tightens.

He hears some branches crack behind him and glances up to see Lipton approaching them, an unreadable look on his face. “Get him to Doc Roe. Don’t leave him by himself.”

Luz nods and gently helps Malarkey stand up, keeping a hold on his arm. Luz makes the mistake of looking at Malarkey’s face—tear streaked, red, twisted into an ugly expression that mixes a soul-deep grief and the shocking feel of a hollowness inside him—and has to blink rapidly again before looking away and resolutely not looking back.

\---

All Roe does is give Malarkey a piece of chocolate and his own foxhole to sit in. His face is pitying and relieved all at once, probably thinking about how grateful he is that it wasn’t Babe in Muck’s place and him in Malarkey’s.

\---

“His name.” Malarkey says hours later, voice cracking again. “His name, just—one second I was hunkered down and looking at it and, and thinking to myself: _I need to pull my head out of my ass_. And. And then the next—” His voice turns wet, his eyes no different, and shows Luz his blank wrist. “Next thing I knew, his name was _gone_.”

“Muck.” Luz says, but they don’t teach you in paratroop training how to comfort someone who’s just lost their soulmate. They don’t prepare you for the inevitable emotional turmoil war will bring to you and all your friends. Luz feels _helpless_ , and all he wants to do is to rewind time so Muck and Penkala are never in that foxhole, so they don’t fucking _explode_ , so he doesn’t have to sit in a shallow hole in the middle of the goddamn Belgian forest in the middle of the goddamn winter, grasping wildly at anything to say to Donald Malarkey. This _fucking_ war.

\---

(Much later, in the convent, Luz sits next to Malarkey, who stares blankly at the back of the pew in front of him and cries fat, quiet tears that seem a world away from his guttural, shattering, hitching sobs from before. Luz wraps an arm around his friends and tries, once again, to offer the comfort Malarkey needs. But he knows that what Malarkey needs is Muck, and Luz is not Muck, and he doesn’t know understand someone can keep breathing after their heart’s been so thoroughly broken.)

***

“I hate this.” Dick says, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. “I hate just standing here and watching them _die_.”

Nixon doesn’t reply immediately, preoccupied with keeping his binoculars trained on Malarkey. “Maybe we should have kept Malarkey back—sent him home with Buck or something.”

Dick makes a noncommittal noise. There’s a pause where he’s clearly considering something, then, “So you’re talking to me again, huh, Lew?”

Nixon clamps his mouth shut, swallows and doesn’t answer at all.

“Right. “ Dick says. “Well, at least you aren’t physically avoiding me anymore.”

And, to that, Nixon doesn’t have a respectable reply.

***

The Battle of Foy starts off on a dismal note. Dike, as everyone knew he would, clams up and fucks them all over. Then, as absolutely no one but maybe Carwood expected, Ronald Speirs takes charge and turns the tide of the battle.

Seeing him working in the midst of battle like that makes one thing evident to Carwood:

Ronald Speirs is _crazy_.

Carwood knows, contrary to what some of the boys and their rumors seem to think, Ron isn’t literally insane. But, there’s a definite disconnect between what Ron seems to think is a logical course of action, and what everyone else thinks is a logical course of action.

Watching Ron run straight through the German fire like that leaves Carwood with the bitter taste of adrenaline in his mouth and with a sharp terror gripping his heart. There’s nothing he can do, and he knows that this is the most expedient course of action—the best choice if they don’t want this mission to be a horrible failure. But, that doesn’t stop his mind from hastily trying to throw together a plan that would leave Ron firmly unscathed.

But, then.

 _Then_.

Carwood watches, stunned and filled with an odd sense of pride, as Ron not only connects with the other company, but turns around and starts running back, hostile enemy be dammed.

He _comes back._

 _God_.

Time seems to suddenly speed back up, despite Carwood barely being aware that it’d slowed down at all. The rest of the battle is a blur, and all he can remember about it later on is an overwhelming feeling of relief and a need to touch and kiss Ron again, just to make sure he was actually alright.

Afterwards, that’s exactly what he does. Bloody, tired, and triumphant, he seeks out Ron, roughly grabs him by the straps on his uniform, and drags the taller man forward. Carwood kisses him ferociously, angry almost, and tries to breathe all of Ron into himself.

When they break apart, they’re both breathing hard, clinging to one another.

Finally, Ron says without sincerity but with one of his signature predatory grins, “Sorry.”

Carwood clears his throat, pushing past the sudden swelling thickness in it. “If you’d _died_ —“ but that’s all he gets out, because then he’s thinking about Muck and Malarkey, about his mother and father, and about Buck Compton. He swallows and shakes his head to shake off the mere thought. “I love you.” He says instead, and Ron’s grin softens and turns into something private and apologetic and loving all at once.

\---

In the convent, Speirs seeks him out.

He says, “The stunt you pulled with Powers was idiotic.”

And Carwood raises an eyebrow, more amused than annoyed. “The stunt _I_ pulled was idiotic?”

Ron shrugs. “If I’d died, you’d be the only one to mourn me. If you’d died, morale would have dropped into negative amounts.”

He flinches at _if I’d died._ “That’s not true,” Carwood says, “they respect you.”

“They _fear_ me.” Ron corrects. “They think I’m the meanest, toughest son of a bitch around. I’m not about to deny or confirm any rumors disputing it but, you, Carwood,” he smiles, then, a real smile, “they truly respect you. Those boys would follow you anywhere. They know they can count on you, can look to you for direction and focus—you’re a great combat leader, you’re what they need and what they want. ‘Cause of that, your life should be valued above mine.”

“In that case,” Carwood says, “the stunt you pulled was definitely more idiotic.”

“Oh?”

“Of course.” He takes a step into Ron’s space. “See: if you died, my own morale would go down, and, as backed by what you just said, if my morale goes down, everyone’s goes down. So, don’t be a goddamn moron and pull that kind of a shit again, alright?” He kisses Ron, then, chaste and quick.

Ron laughs quietly and kisses the crown of his head tenderly, the message—delivered teasingly or not—getting across loud and clear. He says, “Alright.” and Carwood thinks he could cry.

***

“Nix,” Dick says in a quiet voice. Nixon doesn’t lift his head, refuses to meet Dick’s eyes. “You can’t run from me forever.”

He grumbles, not petulant at all. “I can damn well _try_.”

Dick chuckles and takes the open seat next to him. “You’re not doing too well right now.”

“Yes,” he says, “well.”

Dick is silent for a moment before he says, casually, “Are we still on for Chicago?”

“War’s not over yet.” He says pointedly.

“You know as well as I do that we’re almost there.”

Nixon sighs and finally lifts his head, uncrossing his arms. For the first time in weeks he looks his best friend in the eyes. Around them, their boys are near silent, leaning on each other and tiredly but gratefully listening to the choir crooning a foreign song in a foreign land. The candles cast a soft glow on Dick’s clean-shaven face and Nixon barely resists reaching out and touching him.

“Well?” Dick prompts.

“If that’s what you want.” Nixon says.

Dick leans into Nixon’s space a bit more, holding eye contact. “What do _you_ want, Lew?”

Nixon looks down at his hands, uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, the main one being that he thinks he might be going into withdrawal. He ignores that. “I want—to not have to be having this conversation right now.”

“Are you ever going to want to have this conversation?”

He snorts. “Not really.”

Dick leans back then and says, “Then there’s no time like the present.”

“ _Dick_ ,” he says pleadingly, “you don’t _want_ that. It’s kind of hard for me to deny that we’re—you know—but. But you deserve better.”

Dick gives him an incredulous look, leaning further back. “I _deserve better_? I don’t think you really understand the concept of soulmates, Lew.”

“Stop.” He says. “I can’t—I can’t talk about this right now, Dick. God _dammit_.  Just leave me to wallow alone, alright?”

Dick’s face is, in a word, wounded. He stands up and clears his throat. “I’m being selfish, I’m sorry, Lew. I’ll let you carry on.” With that, he stiffly turns and walks away, headed for the church doors, out toward the biting chill of winter at midnight.

Nixon watches him go, filled with a mix of regret, guilt, and relief. He doesn’t care what biology tells them, Dick Winters is a gift, and Dick Winters deserves ten times better than poor old Lewis Nixon—a depressive drunk, incapable of making emotional connections, unwilling to push beyond his cloud of self-pity in order to give anything at all to anyone else. He can’t do that to Dick, and won’t let Dick do it to himself.

Life may hate Nixon, but Nixon surely doesn’t hate Dick, and he’s willing to do whatever he needs to protect him from the hurt that would surely result from a deeper relationship with Nixon. Soulmates or not, Dick Winters was made for someone better and stronger, and Nixon would not get in the way of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> excuses:  
> 1\. I kind of actually forgot this existed for a long time  
> 2\. Life is overwhelming  
> 3\. My willingness to do anything but sleep is negative three hundred
> 
> also:
> 
> ironic bc it's D-Day right??? or something?? I'm sorry again. I'm working on things, and this will be one of those things, and I will not leave you all hanging for another year, I swear.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mention of hypothetical non-con. (but no non-con or dub-con, all is con)

The moment Carwood contracts pneumonia, Ron knows.

The sharp, sudden pain in his lungs makes him think, at first, that he’s the one with the problem. He frowns and rubs his chest, but it quickly fades into something more uncomfortable than actively painful.

The pot-hole ridden road and the bouncing truck quickly jars him out of his thoughts, and he shakes his head. They’re headed for a town in France now—Hageneau—following intelligence that says Hitler is trying vainly to change the tide of the war, even though the war has been in the Allies’ favor since D-Day, so long ago. But they all know the end is drawing nearer with every breath, and Ron’s thoughts have been straying toward the future instead of remaining firmly in the present.

He hopes that Carwood will return home with him, that they can buy a house and build a life away from war together. They’ll get a puppy, because he knows Carwood wants one, and they’ll probably visit Carwood’s mother and brother every Christmas. They can have drinks with Winters or Luz or someone every now and then, they won’t talk about the war, and they’ll move on with their lives.

Ron has never wanted anything more, and his daydreams quickly make him forget about his brief flash of pain.

He doesn’t get to see Carwood until they reach the bombed out town, much later, their boys efficiently spreading out, securing, bunking down. Winters helps him commandeer one of the more intact buildings as a pseudo-headquarters, and that’s when he realizes something is horribly amiss.

Carwood is coughing—hacking, to be more accurate. He has newer, darker circles under his eyes; he looks like all the color has been forcibly pulled out of him. And, most troublingly, he looks like he could fall over dead purely out of exhaustion at any given moment.

From across the room, Ron makes an alarmed sound, and literally drops what he’s doing to propel himself over to Carwood’s side. He makes the connection in a flash of understanding and wants to _hit_ himself.

“Sit down, Carwood, before you brain yourself on something.” He says.

Carwood gives him an unimpressed look. “I’m fine.”

Ron returns the unimpressed look, but lets some irritation bleed into it. “You have pneumonia.” He says flatly.

“How do you—” Carwood cuts himself, shaking his head, almost amused. Instead, he repeats, “I’m fine.”

“Lie down.” Ron says. “How the hell do you plan on getting anything done when you can’t even see straight?”

“I can—” He waves his hands around in a vague gesture, “you know. It’ll pass eventually, anyway.”

“You need to _rest_.” Ron insists. He gently steers Carwood toward the faded couch in the middle of the room, gratified when Carwood doesn’t physically resist. He looks annoyed, but he sits down anyway, unable to verbally protest when his entire body is racked with a long, terrifying minute of wet-sounding coughs.

Winters, who had been watching the entire exchange from where Ron had abandoned him across the room, looks amused and concerned at once. He pipes in, “Ron’s right, Carwood. You’re no good to anyone sick like this.” He smiles encouragingly, then, although his own face is looking awfully drawn and pale. “Just get some rest, try to get warm again.”

Nixon wanders in then, pausing only briefly when he sees Winters, but he quickly zeroes in on the obviously ill Carwood being taken care of (coddled, some would say, but not to Ron’s face) by Ron. He grunts, as if he’s not surprised. “You’re shit at taking care of yourself, Lip.” He says pointedly, but leaves it at that.

Carwood makes a face that’s a near-pout, but otherwise doesn’t say anything else. Ron kisses his forehead in approval.

“I’ll find you some blankets.” He says.

When he comes back, Luz is there, looking worse for wear but otherwise carrying on like normal by poking fun at Carwood. “ _Great_ example, Lieutenant.” He says cheekily. Carwood would probably be throwing back some sharp but well-meaning retort if it weren’t for another round of coughs that overtake him. Ron quickly tosses the musty blankets he’d found over Carwood, tucking him in firmly.

“Go to sleep.” Ron tells him, gentler now. He seats himself on the couch and twists so he can place a hand on the side of Carwood’s warm neck. “The war isn’t going to end just yet.”

Carwood snorts and pins him with a bleary-eyed, fond look. He doesn’t say anything, but Ron knows all of it already— _I love you_ and _thank you_ and _this is fucking ridiculous you’re being ridiculous_. He smiles, a soft, Carwood-only smile. Behind him, Luz shifts a bit uncomfortably, but covers it with fake gagging noises.

He knows he gets a little lost, disoriented, when he’s around Carwood. He feels little like he’s veered wildly off course, leaving the normal plane of existence all together. He catapults into something purer, brighter, _happier_. Whatever it is, it’s full of Carwood, and it warms him from the inside out, and Ron wishes he could live in this plane forever.

Instead, he often crashed back down to earth to find that he’s missed an entire conversation, or he’s in some place entirely different from where he started. He doesn’t mind it as much as he thought he would, mostly just content with having Carwood alive and breathing in his vicinity.

It works.

As it were, when he comes to it’s to find that some baby-faced West Point graduate is babbling to Winters, who looks like a mix between bored and respectful. Ron ignores them in favor of holding Carwood’s hand and trying to will the sickness out of him.

“You have responsibilities to get to.”  Carwood points out, voice scratchy.

Before he can reply, Luz says, “I can take care of the good Lieutenant here, sir.”

Ron twists the opposite way to give Luz his flattest stare.

“Really, Ron,” he turns back to face Carwood as he speaks, “I’m fine. Luz is perfectly capable of finding me blankets and water.”

He hesitates then, just a split second, with one hand tangled with Carwood’s on top of the blanket and the other hovering over the side of Carwood’s warm face. As much as he wants to forget the war and all that it entails just to be with Carwood, he knows that level of irresponsibility could get him demoted. Or, worse, it might make Carwood angry with him.

Sighing, he stands up. “I’ll be back around 1900 to check on you.” He says.

Carwood smiles up at him indulgently. “I’ll be right here, trying to remove my lungs from my body.”

Ron smiles and leans down to kiss Carwood in the middle of his forehead. 

“I’ll take real good care of him, sir.” Luz says earnestly. Ron straightens and turns to face him. Luz gives him a grin, half-cheeky half-nervous, “We both know Lip is stronger than a bout of pneumonia, anyway, right?”

“Of course he is.” He says coolly, like Luz is stupid for having to say so out loud.

“Leave the kid alone.” Nixon calls across the room, sounding amused. Luz makes an affronted noise at being called _kid_ and looks like he has a sharp retort on his tongue, but Nixon continues talking. “We all know Lip’ll be fine because he’s Lip, just go do—” he waves his arms “—whatever it is you should be doing.”

“Yes, sir.” Ron says.

Nixon rolls his eyes. “The sarcasm is unnecessary, but I’ll take it.”

As he’s leaving, Ron doesn’t miss the look Winters is giving Nixon—like the sun’s come out and Hitler’s been declared dead in the very same moment—and he can’t help but give a mental sigh of relief.

***

Hageneau is…not good for David Webster. At least, not at first.

Ever since his and Joe’s last crash-and-burn failure of a conversation, Web has somehow become _more_ miserable than before.

Of course, there are reasons for his misery besides Joe Liebgott (and if Joe was the _primary_ reason, well). There was all the absolute bullshit that ended his bullshit of a year—his friends, brothers, dying. Left and right people are leaving for one reason or another, and there’s nothing he or anyone else can do about it. This war is absolute fucking _bullshit_ and they’re all so _cold_ and _hungry_ all the damn time and all he wants to do is kick down Hitler’s door and punch the fucker in the _face_.

(He swears he was a lot more articulate before—well, before.)

The point is: Hageneau is just the icing on top of the shit cake with all its hopelessness and slush and _grayness_. Not to mention Joe’s already angry disposition seemed to get _angrier_. How such a thing was possible, Web would never know. All he knew was that he did _not_ want to deal with Joe Liebgott and his furious denials right now.

But, Web never did have control over his life.

(The name on his wrist was proof enough of that.)

He’s thinking (“Ahem, _brooding_.” Babe would correct.) alone in the room he’s meant to share with five other guys. The wallpaper is peeling, the floor boards are water-damaged, and the windows are cracked and dirty. It’s not cold—not like Bastogne—but it’s hardly toasty warm. The other guys are scurrying around being useless elsewhere, but Web hardly minds.

It’s nice to have some solitude after weeks and weeks of living hell.

He initially planned on spending his time doing something useful like writing without numb, shaking hands or sleeping in a bed. But those plans go down the drain the second he sits down and starts thinking.

His thoughts immediately jump to his biggest pain—Joe Liebgott. And from there, he begins to trace the name on his wrist with a fingertip. He frowns through every letter, unsettled as he thinks on his and Joe’s last conversation. There’s a lot of issues between the two of them, but the _Joseph D. Liebgott_ permanently scrawled on his body promises that, someday maybe, things will be okay.

Of course, Joe just has to catch him at it.

“Y’know,” Joe says, all casual like. Web is sitting on a bottom bunk, and Joe takes the opportunity to tower as imposingly as Joe Liebgott can. He leans an arm on the frame of the top bunk and smirks at Web. “Y’know, just ‘cause you have someone’s name on your wrist, doesn’t always mean they have _your_ name on theirs.”

Web scowls at his feet then stands up so he can scowl at Joe. “Lucky for me, I already know whose name is on you.”

Joe scoffs. “Doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Yeah, right, Joe. Stop kidding yourself.”

“Look, College Boy,” Joe says hotly, “this soulmate thing is complete bullshit. Just ‘cause two people have that—whatever—doesn’t mean they’re supposed to be in _love_.”

“There are a lot of kinds of love.” Web agrees. “But, I think you and I both know what kind this is.”

“ _No_ ,” Joe snaps, “I don’t think we _both_ know. I think you’re the one kidding yourself about whatever we’re supposed to be, but I know that these _names_ ,” here, he grabs Web’s prone wrist and yanks closer Web until their wrists are side by side, the ink of their names pressed together, “just mean we’re connected in some crazy, mystical way. That’s _it._ ”

Web suddenly feels exhausted with it all, and he tugs himself out of Joe’s grasp gently. “What are you so scared of, Joe?”

“I’m not scared.”

“Then why won’t you just admit that the connection between us is supposed to be _love_? And you _know_ what kind I’m talking about! It’s there, in our faces, what the fuck else is there to it?”

Joe looks angry, then, his face twisting into a sneer. “Why are you so naïve?”

“I’m not _naïve_ ,” Web protests. Tension and fury is building in him, threatening to burst from his words. “You’re just in some twisted sort of _denial_.”

“ _You’re_ the one in fucking denial! We’re not meant to love each other, _Web_. I’m not meant to—”

Web explodes. “Oh just _shut up_ already. We’re soulmates, Joe, do I have to spell it out? We’re not connected like brothers or best friends, this isn’t _platonic_. Even before your name spelled itself out on my wrist, I _knew_. When we first became friends—before you started hating me—I _knew_. And all I’ve been doing is trying to make you see, to let go of whatever fucked up fears you have so you can open up and we can be _happy_.”

“Well what if I don’t _want_ to be happy? What the fuck then? Are you going to _force_ yourself on me, David, are you _that_ desperate for someone to _care_ about you?”

“I would never do that!”

“You’re pretty fucking close to it _now_.”

“I’m not trying to _force myself_ on you, Joe. I’m trying to understand what the hell is going through your mind and why you won’t let yourself feel and see that I’m not the one desperate for someone to care— _you_ are.”

“Well I never fucking asked you to care, did I?”

“That’s the _point_ ,” And, suddenly, Web can’t get the words out fast enough. “You don’t _need_ to ask me. You don’t need to ask _anyone_. All these paratroops, these men, they care about you. I care about you. You don’t have to close yourself off from us—especially from _me_. Just let go and let yourself feel. Be selfish for once, Joe. For God’s sake, the universe decided we’re inexplicably, undeniably, wholly and wonderfully _connected_. And I _know_ you don’t actually hate me, so what’s the problem?”

Gentler, Web continues, “You and I are soulmates, and you don’t need to be scared of that. _I_ was scared, for a really, really long time. But I understand it now, I accept it. And you know what I figured out? I figured out that even if these tattoos never existed, even if we weren’t tangibly linked, I would still be in love with you.”

At the end of it, Web is breathing hard and Joe looks like all the argument has drained out of him. If the room hadn’t already been empty, their argument should have cleared it well enough. Before he realizes what’s happening, the distance between them begins rapidly disappearing and Web feels panic rise in him despite all his words, but he doesn't want to move.

Then, finally, Joe’s lips meet his—angry and desperate, just like Joe himself—and everything _clicks_.

It’s not that great as far as kisses go, but both men have lost every shred of self-preservation and it’s all either of them can do to remember to _breathe_.

Joe is pressed against him, insistent, hands tugging at Web’s hair. Web kisses him back and matches him blow for blow. His mind is blissfully empty of anything but Joe’s name over and over and over. Things are progressing at a lightning fast pace, and Web comes back to himself for a split second when Joe _tackles_ him to the bed. Dust and dirt explode out of the bed, but neither of them really care. Web’s entire world has narrowed down to his moment, these feelings, to nothing but Joe Liebgott.

It’s strangely liberating.

Some immeasurable amount of time later, they part, breathing harder than when they started. Joe has both hands in Web’s hair and straddles him and Web has one hand up the back of Joe’s shirt and the other tangled in his hair and Web’s nerve endings are on overdrive.

There’s a beat where they just breathe each other’s air, and then—

Joe laughs.

It’s not the mean laugh Web’s become used to, but one filled with something akin to joy.  After a moment, Web laughs too.

“This is fucking crazy.” Joe says, sounding amused.

Web grins. “It’s destiny.”

A smug smirk, then. “Your destiny is to get fucked by me?”

Web rolls his eyes. “I’d say it’s the other way around, but yeah, sure. There’s other stuff in there but I doubt you want to talk about commitment.”

“Damn right I don’t want to talk about _commitment_.”

“Okay.” Web says. “We don’t have to, not right now, but—but you know where this is leading.”

Joe finally releases his hold on Web and sits up. He doesn’t make any move to get off of Web, though. He sighs. “Yeah, David, I know. But can we not talk about feelings and soulmates for a while? Just—let me get my head on straight, figure things out for myself.”

“Okay.” Web says again. He smirks, then. “Good thing we don’t need to talk about feelings and soulmates to fuck, right?”

Joe laughs and leans back down. He kisses Web, slow and almost sweet, then pulls back less than an inch. He sounds like he’s smiling when he says, “Right.”

Web kisses him again and is content in the knowledge that this is the beginning of _someday maybe_.


End file.
